Jack Moriarty on the art of goalkicking
“Play football with your head as well as with your feet. That, to my mind, is the full-forward's golden rule. Know what you want to do, study your opponents and the play, and be ever on the lookout for new theories to experiment with, both at practice and in matches.”
Here is sound advice from a man who is in his tenth year of Victorian League football, and today is still one of the cleverest, if not the cleverest, forwards who pulls on a guernsey , each Saturday in Melbourne.
That business of playing with your head as well as with your feet is the secret of success of Jack Moriarty, Fitzroy’s star goalkicker. Enunciated by such a great player, it is well worth hearkening to and heeding. It helped to make Jack Moriarty the first man ever to kick more than 80 goals in one season. That was eight years ago. It is still helping to keep him right in the centre of the limelight.
A few weeks ago Jack Moriarty amazed a big crowd in Sydney with his cleverness when playing as a member of the Victorian team against representatives of New South Wales in the Australian code of football. Sydneysiders saw something that has always been a source of wonder to Melbournians—the uncanny intuition which invariably places this meagrely built chap at the right time in the right spot for a shot at goal with either foot.
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There are plenty of forwards who can run up a big tally of goals when their team-mates are feeding them well. But there are very few who can do the job with a minimum of support, and Jack Moriarty is outstanding among these last mentioned. He is a member of a team which has seldom shown anything like first-class form in recent seasons. The result is that more often than not he has to play a lone hand. Yet he continues to hold his own with the Coventry's, the Vallence’s, the Moloney’s. Therein lies his greatness.
A shrewd, brainy fellow, Moriarty, as may be judged from what he has to say about the ways and means of his Saturday afternoon job.
“I am in my team for a certain purpose—to kick goals. Therefore, I make it my business to study out just how, where, and, by what means I can best get those goals.”
“Suppose, I am playing centre-forward—my usual post. Maybe, I will try and get the man minding me, the full-back, interested in some phase of the game, so that his attention is directed away from me. If I can do this, I'll stroll back ten yards or so towards the goal. Perhaps he will wake up to the fact that I've slipped away, just as the ball is coming towards us.
It worries him, and makes him wonder what to do to pin you down. Probably if the ball comes in fast, you'll have just that little bit of extra ground that enables you to whip around and shoot for goal. Things like that unbalance a full-back.
My father [Geoff Moriarty] put me up to that dodge. You know, he was a great centre-forward for Fitzroy before he transferred to the full-back position so he knows the game from both ends of the field so to speak.
If I am working in one of the forward pockets, my idea is to work in towards goal as the ball comes along. That takes the back pocket man in with me. Then I dash back into position again, so that I'll be on my own and the man with the ball can play to me.
A forward, to be successful, must cultivate accuracy, speed, and a sense of direction. During a great deal of the play he has his back to the goal. I endeavour to make things easier for myself in this connection by studying the line from goal to goal, and by picking out a point—a tree, or something of the sort—that is directly in line with the goal I am attacking. Then when I have the ball, I take a glance at that mark, and it tells me just about where I am, even if I cannot see the goal. That is of tremendous assistance to a man in snap-shooting.
I don't believe in struggling with the pack for the ball, if I can avoid it, or by trying to fly for marks with tall followers and half-backs. My plan is to scout around the front or the back of the bunch, according to where I think the ball will come out. Nor do I believe in chasing a man who wanders out from you. That only takes you away from the goal front, and if the ball comes back quickly, you aren't there. Perhaps it means the loss of a goal. I don't say it works well always, but in the majority of cases it does.
If I can give the full-back the impression he is a much better man than I am, that's all right with me. He is apt to get a bit careless. And by the time he wakes up, maybe I've snapped a couple of goals. It's just a case of head-work. That is your only chance if you are a small man.
The same thing applies in your methods with heavier opponents who try and use their weight on you. If I know they are going to bump me, I let myself go with the weight, and try to fall in the direction of the ball. What's the use of bumping a bigger man than yourself? You'll come off second-best, and probably lose a chance for a free-kick, or a quick pick-up.
Above all, I endeavour to keep myself as keen as possible. You are never so good but that you can't be better. That is my motto, and it's a good one. Anyhow, it has never let me down yet.
Footnotes
Title: Secrets of sporting success: Head and feet in Moriarty's success as goal-kicker
Author: Referee Staff Writer
Publisher: Referee (Sydney, NSW: 1886-1939)
Date: Wednesday, 27 July 1932, p.2 (Article Illustrated)
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