Jarrod Croker's true kicking record

Post by **greeneyed** » April 27, 2020, 1:36 pm

True Kicker: New ratings system reveals NRL's sharpest shooters

When it comes to working out which goalkicker is best, the simple way is to look at percentages. The usual candidates in recent years have been at the top of the standings when it comes purely to percentages, Adam Reynolds, Nathan Cleary and Jarrod Croker.

Adjusting for the degree of difficulty, however, over the past two years, Canberra Raiders co-captain still ranks fourth in the league, behind Gareth Widdop, Nathan Cleary and Cameron Smith.

Read more: https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/04/27/tru ... -shooters/

Northern Raider · Post by **Northern Raider** » April 27, 2020, 1:55 pm

Interesting. They rate difficulty based purely on kick location. I would consider prevaling conditions to have more of an impact, although hard to quantify that statistically.

edwahu · Post by **edwahu** » April 27, 2020, 3:05 pm

Good to see a few more advanced statistics getting a run in the NRL.

gangrenous · Post by **gangrenous** » April 27, 2020, 6:27 pm

If Cameron Smith is a better kick than JC I will eat my hat.

Having the scoring adapted for distance to goals makes zero sense for conversions. It’s a choice, and you’re positively weighting kickers who like to go further back. It should come into play for penalty kicks only.

Not to mention if they haven’t done it right and it’s weighted by historical zones, a kicker can be bumped up by having another **** kicker(s) who likes to take it from that distance and miss more often, artificially inflating the difficulty of that zone. It wouldn’t surprise me if as a left foot kicker JC is being penalised harder for missing kicks on the left hand side that are higher average conversion due to more right footers, and vice versa on the other side.

If you’re going to do this kind of thing you’ve got to make sure you do it properly.

-PJ- · Post by **-PJ-** » April 27, 2020, 7:42 pm

All I know is this..

I'm very happy with Toots as our goal kicker. I think he's fantastic.

He's kicked some real clutch kicks for us and has won plenty of games on his boot alone.

He's one of the NRLs sharpshooters for sure.

Ruben Daley · Post by **Ruben Daley** » April 27, 2020, 8:36 pm

This is interesting. I'd also like to see them factor in time of the game, e.g. the first ten minutes are valued less than the last ten minutes (due to fatigue), and closeness of the contest, e.g. a kick to go ahead is worth more than a kick when you're up by twenty.

So a kick from the sideline to win a game in the last two minutes is the highest scorer.

Maybe I'm getting carried away...

raiderskater · Post by **raiderskater** » April 27, 2020, 9:34 pm

Ruben Daley wrote: ↑April 27, 2020, 8:36 pm This is interesting. I'd also like to see them factor in time of the game, e.g. the first ten minutes are valued less than the last ten minutes (due to fatigue), and closeness of the contest, e.g. a kick to go ahead is worth more than a kick when you're up by twenty.

So a kick from the sideline to win a game in the last two minutes is the highest scorer.

Maybe I'm getting carried away...

Factoring what the player has done as well.

That wobbly-legged sideline conversion after the huge sprint downfield against the Sharks last year should be worth a swag

Ruben Daley · Post by **Ruben Daley** » April 27, 2020, 9:55 pm

raiderskater wrote: ↑April 27, 2020, 9:34 pm
Ruben Daley wrote: ↑April 27, 2020, 8:36 pm This is interesting. I'd also like to see them factor in time of the game, e.g. the first ten minutes are valued less than the last ten minutes (due to fatigue), and closeness of the contest, e.g. a kick to go ahead is worth more than a kick when you're up by twenty.

So a kick from the sideline to win a game in the last two minutes is the highest scorer.

Maybe I'm getting carried away...
Factoring what the player has done as well.

That wobbly-legged sideline conversion after the huge sprint downfield against the Sharks last year should be worth a swag

Yeah, I agree.

This is the thing about stats. So hard to capture the actual moment event.

I was never as impressed with Nathan Hindmarsh’s big tackle counts or Paul Gallen’s big metres as some in the media.

BadnMean · Post by **BadnMean** » April 28, 2020, 6:24 pm

Not that fussed, after last season if someone had said JC ranked as the 4th best kicker in the comp on just plain old # of kicks in vs missed I'd have believed it. Seems about right. He's a top 4 kicker.

I don't think I've ever really thought he's the #1 kicker so close enough. There's probably a couple in the league who outkick him over a season lately. But I trust JC to make them count when needed.

woppadingo · Post by **woppadingo** » May 2, 2020, 1:33 am

2019 probably was not his best year but overall Im grateful we have had a kicker of his calibre playing for us,

julian87 · Post by **julian87** » May 2, 2020, 9:03 am

gangrenous wrote: ↑April 27, 2020, 6:27 pm If Cameron Smith is a better kick than JC I will eat my hat.

Hmm. Smith was always rather mediocre but something happened about 4 years ago and since then he’s been top of the tree imo.

Seiffert82 · Post by **Seiffert82** » May 2, 2020, 9:49 am

Croker's kicking % (and technique) clearly dropped off in 2018 and 2019 after his knee injury. He started stabbing at the ball, particularly in 2018, and only really came back to his old technique half way through 2019. At his best he's an 80-85% goal kicker.

Smith has improved the last couple of seasons, but he has historically been in the range of a 70-75% kicker. He used to miss some shockers, but is now pretty reliable.

Of the current crop, Cleary and Reynolds are the ones I most expect to hit the pressure shots, along with Toots.