Bob Bonnett and Fred Cook, the goal-kicking goliaths who recently had the ends of the North Port Oval named in their honour, would be wondering what’s happened to today’s spearheads.
Bonnett and Cook sit third and first respectively on the VFA/VFL goal kicking honour roll with a collective 2269 goals, a combined 10 competition leading goal kicking titles and an accumulative 23 club goal kicking awards.
Bonnett kicked a century of goals once in a season and twice finished in the 90s while Cook booted a hundred goals seven times.
Centurian goal kickers was a signature of VFA full forwards, but over the past quarter of a century it has diminished with just two reaching the coveted ton.
Springvale’s Shayne Smith kicked 106 goals in 1997 and Aaron Edwards (pictured) booted 100 goals in his historic JJ Liston/‘Frosty’ Miller winning season of 2006.
Current Essendon General Manager, Matthew Little, has come the closest of any spearhead since Edwards with his ‘Frosty’ Miller winning season of 80 in 2010.
No longer is the talk of a full forward kicking the ton, its more will they crack the 50?
As the VFL heads into the back half of the 2014 season, the leading goal kicker is on track to kick the lowest total since somewhat ironically, Bonnett kicked 44 goals to top the goal kicking in 1963.
Werribee's Ben Warren leads the goal kicking with 28 goals. There are 14 players within eight goals of the Tiger leading goal kicker.
Last season Dean Galea won the ‘Frosty’ Miller Medal with 55 goals, the smallest since Bonnett’s ’64 competition-leading performance
Not only did full forwards from previous eras kick triple figure tallies, but they kicked the proverbial ‘bags’ - football parlance for double digit goals.
Not anymore.
The highest individual haul this season is six goals, kicked by Kyle Martin, Patrick Karnezis and Ryan Ferguson.
The biggest haul over the past couple of seasons is the 11 that Ben Warren kicked to open the 2013 season against Port Melbourne.
So, what’s happened to all the goal kickers?
Galea, who kicked 333 VFL goals, is now plying his trade with Avondale Heights in the Essendon District Football League. So is his Port Melbourne teammate, Paddy Rose, winner of the 2011 ‘Frosty’ Miller Medal.
Nick Sautner, a winner of an extraordinary nine ‘Frosty’ Miller Medals, regularly kicked between 70 - 90 goals during his reign as the VFL’s best full forward. But, the number of goals kicked by a full forward has been on a rapid decline in the past five seasons.
Port Melbourne coach Gary Ayres believes there’s several reasons to explain why there’s no longer the high scoring full forwards.
Ayres said the key forwards in the competition now are the AFL listed players, who if they show goal kicking prowess like Geelong’s Josh Walker find themselves in the AFL.
He also noted the defensive mindset of coaches to have an extra player in defence, which not only allows defenders to double team a full forward, but also to cut out his space.
“The style of playing that most clubs are predominantly playing is numbers back in front of the key forward or most dangerous forward,” Ayres said.
“Really, there is very little space for them to find to ply their trade. With the game now very much about defensive half saturation the ball generally is not being moved quickly to a one on one situation.
“The one on one situation now that a key or dangerous forward craves is very limited.”
Ayres said the scrutiny of opposition clubs is now so diligent that if clubs do have a dangerous key forward, so much work goes into shutting him down and if that is a club’s sole avenue to goal then clubs are not going to win too many games.
He said clubs these days needed multiple goal kickers, particularly with midfielders chipping in to spread the effectiveness and make clubs more difficult and unpredictable to play against.
“You become too predictable if you have just the one main goal scorer. We are always on about trying to find multiple options,” Ayres said.
Williamstown coach Andy Collins, a member of the Sandringham 1985 premiership team as well as playing in three flags with Hawthorn, said the generational change was another important factor.
Collins noted that players now are “taller, bigger and stronger” as evidenced by the players who are now playing in the midfield where previously they would have been forwards.
He said players on a half back flank are now 190 cm plus.
“The whole football field is bigger, stronger, taller than it’s ever been in the history of the game,” Collins said.
“It’s therefore more difficult to mark the ball in the forward line than it has ever been and then you combine that with tactics of today and it’s tougher than ever for players to kick big totals of goals.”
Collins, who played alongside Ian Morrison and Ross Brewer during his days at Sandringham, would like to see the great VFA full forwards of previous eras recognised with retrospective ‘Frosty’ Miller medals.
He believes it would be fitting recognition for their achievements.
Another factor is the money available in suburban or country leagues, which is luring away players who previously played or could have played in the VFL.
Brendan Fevola and Justin Koschitzke are being well rewarded playing in the country, so, too Galea and Rose in community leagues.
Essendon General Manager Matthew Little said football has evolved even since he finished playing three seasons ago.
Little said with the nature of how the VFL, with all its alignments, rolled there was more volatility in selection on a weekly basis now than in the past.
He noted the pool of players who play an entire season, particularly in a set position, no longer prevails.
“With the AFL (listed) players if they are kicking a lot of goals they are tending to go up (to the AFL) pretty quickly,” Little said.
“It does make it pretty difficult, but if you look at the AFL they used to have players kicking 100 plus goals. You don’t see it happen very often now.
“The leading goal kicker now in the AFL is probably going to kick the 70-75 mark. They don’t often kick too many more than that.
“The other thing is that scores have dropped. Everyone is focusing very heavily on defence with so many players back inside the 50 it makes it difficult for forwards to kick big bags.”
Little also noted the ‘stay at home’ full forward has gone the way of the typewriter - they had become obsolete.
“You don’t really have that forward that plays out of the goal square anymore,” Little said.
“Dean Galea played his footy from the goal square and that’s probably how I played my footy to some degree.”
While the days of the century goal kickers or even the half century goal kickers may appear to be a thing of the past, as football continues to evolve who knows what the future holds.
Certainly, most fans would love nothing more than to see a full forward reliving the feats of Bob Bonnett or Fred Cook.
Last Modified on 09/07/2014 11:29