MATT Suckling has to recalibrate his kicking to win back his spot in the side, says Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson.
The left-footed superboot has paid the price for the Hawks' fourth loss of the season, being omitted from the team to face Gold Coast in Launceston on Saturday.
Last Saturday night Clarkson lamented his side's kicking but defended Suckling after he coughed up possession by booting the ball into Swans defender Dane Rampe on the Hawks' forward 50m arc, creating the turnover that led to Luke Parker's match-winning goal.
But stats show that Suckling's radar has gone awry in 2015.
His kick rating – a statistic measured by Champion Data that takes into account the difficulty of a kick and compares it to how often an average player would hit the target – has dropped sharply.
Based on his 105 kicks this year, Suckling has been on target 55.9 per cent of the time, -2.6 per cent below the expected accuracy.
That figure is a stark contrast to last year, when Suckling hit up a teammate with 64.7 per cent of his kicks (+6.3 per cent above expected accuracy), on his way to becoming a premiership player for the first time.
Last year, Suckling was rated the AFL's fifth-best kick, but that ranking has fallen off a cliff to 71st this season and Clarkson told reporters on Friday the 26-year-old needed to sharpen up his disposal.
"He's been a very, very good kick for a long, long period of time. He hasn't been as good in that regard over the last few weeks," Clarkson said.
"He'll work on that over the course of the next week or two. Since he's come into the side, I think this is the first time he's been omitted, since he was just a young fella.
"So he's been an important part of our side and he's just not playing as well as he possibly could at the moment. That happens to players. He’s a pretty proud person and he'll bounce back pretty quickly I'm sure."
Suckling is the one of three changes to the side which lost to the Sydney Swans in the Grand Final rematch, with Grant Birchall (ankle) and Will Langford (corked calf) also making way.
Skipper Luke Hodge comes into the team after serving his three-game suspension, while Taylor Duryea has been recalled and 191cm defender Daniel Howe will make his debut.
Suckling was one of three emergencies who boarded the plane to Launceston, with Angus Litherland and Alex Woodward also making the trip, with the Hawks' VFL affiliate Box Hill not playing until Sunday.
Clarkson said Hodge was "pretty keen to play well" in Tasmania after watching two defeats during his stint on the sidelines, in what is an "important game" for the Hawks (4-4) after their roller-coaster start to 2015.
Hodge gathered an equal club record 44 touches in his last appearance at Aurora Stadium against the Western Bulldogs in round three, and the skipper could again be used through midfield against the depleted Suns.
Despite Gold Coast (1-7) missing star onballers Gary Ablett, Dion Prestia, David Swallow and Jaeger O'Meara, Clarkson said the Hawks needed to respect the Suns' ball-winning ability.
"The Suns have been really strong in the midfield, despite them not being so good in terms of their win-loss throughout the course of the year," he said.
"They're really high up in terms of their clearances (equal first with Hawthorn) and really high up in contested ball (outright third).
"So that gives us a really clear focus because if you allow any side first access to the football it means you've got to be doing good work elsewhere on the ground to get it back again."
However, the Suns face an unenviable task upsetting the Hawks at their Launceston fortress, where the back-to-back premiers have strung together 12-straight wins.
Gold Coast has never beaten Hawthorn in six meetings and has an average losing margin of 54 points against Clarkson's outfit.
Top 10 kicks in the AFL in 2015 (based on Champion Data kick rating):
1. Grant Birchall +11.0%
2. Sam Butler +8.9%
3. Scott Pendlebury +8.2%
4. Eddie Betts +7.4%
5. Jobe Watson +7.3%
6. Sam Fisher +6.9%
7. Jack Gunston +6.5%
8. Sam Mitchell +6.5%
9. Garrick Ibbotson +6.5%
10. Matthew Boyd +6.2%
