James McPhee is the most accurate of the Goulburn Valley League’s top 20 goalkickers this season, having kicked just one behind from his nine scoring shots in the opening six rounds of the year.
He and Sean Williams, the Tigers’ leading goalkicker of 2023 with 12, are making the most of their opportunities in front of goal.
McPhee's return of 8.1 and Williams’ 12.5 tally has them sitting in equal 19th and equal eighth respectively on the GVL goalkicking table.
Williams has a pair of four-goal hauls this season, against reigning premier Echuca and top-six team Mooroopna, the Tigers hopeful he can repeat his Bendigo league heroics.
He kicked 64 goals for Eaglehawk from 20 games in 2018, his best return at senior level of his career.
Shepparton United’s Jayden Magro has kicked 19.11 to this stage of the season, with equal leading goalkicker Ben Christopher’s return being 19.8.
Jackson Trengove’s round six 10.1 return against the Tigers sent me scurrying to the recent record books. Even Trengove has kicked nine behinds this season.
Behind McPhee, the next best in the league for accuracy is Echuca’s Corbin Anderson, who has kicked 11.3 for the season.
Niether McPhee nor Williams will lay claim to being a Tony Lockett or Jason Dunstall, considered two of the safest kicks at goal in the game’s history.
Lockett kicked 1360.590 (69.74 per cent accuracy) and Dunstall 1254.641 (66 per cent), while modern day superstar Lance Franklin’s 1054 goals have come at an accuracy rate of 58.88 per cent, similar to another great of the game, Gary Ablett Snr (1031.690, or 59 per cent).
McPhee kicked 18.10 last season (just ahead in accuracy of Hugh Hamilton, 18.11), while goalkicking midfielder Christopher Jansen kicked 17.9.
Rochester’s two major goalkickers were 47.39 to Steve Stroobants and 44.21 for Mitch Cricelli.
Of last season’s most inaccurate goalkickers, Kyabram recruit Rueben Rode is on track to challenge Nic Denahy’s return of two goals and 15 behinds from last year’s Goulburn Valley League season.
Rode kicked one of Kyabram’s eight minor scores in its 35-point win against last season’s grand finalist Euroa on Saturday, bringing his season’s tally to one goal and nine behinds (sixth most in the competition).
Denahy’s inaccuracy last season was more-than-cancelled-out by his top 10 ranking for inside-50s in the Goulburn Valley League, a statistic led by teammate Kaine Herbert.
Kyabram goalkicker Anthony De Pasquale (27.20 last year) is the league’s equal leader in regard to behinds kicked in 2023 (9.11 so far this season). He kicked 4.4 against the Tigers in the opening match of the season.
He and Rode may be fortunate that the video quality from the Shepparton round five game was so poor that accurate statistical records of the match could not be kept and the 16 behinds kicked by Kyabram were not accredited to any player.
Mansfield’s Cameron Arnold kicked the most behinds of any player in the Goulburn Valley League last season, finishing with 41 behinds from his 90 scoring shots (he also kicked 49 goals).
He has kicked 8.6 this season.
The competition’s two outstanding goalkickers, Echuca’s Ruory Kirky (72 per cent accuracy) and Mooroopna’s Christopher Nield (68.33 per cent), were extremely accurate.
Nield finished the season with 82 goals and 38 behinds, while Kirkby’s return was 85.33.
Hawthorn’s Luke Breust produced one of the most accurate seasons on record in the AFL when he kicked 57.12 (82.60 per cent conversion) in 2015. The following season, to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he kicked 52.19 and has a career conversion record of 68.09 per cent (493 goals from 724 scoring shots).
Of the other modern day AFL players Nick Larkey has the best conversion rate, at 74.09 per cent, having kicked 143 goals from 193 shots. He is marginally ahead of Adelaide’s Darcy Fogarty (72.59 per cent) and Western Bulldogs sharp-shooter Cody Weightman (71 goals at 71 per cent accuracy).