Castagna hopes he’s uncovered goalkicking secretChris Cavanagh,
Herald Sun
3 March 2019Consider this: across their first 50 AFL games, Adelaide-turned-Brisbane Lions dynamo Charlie Cameron kicked 60 goals, St Kilda livewire Jade Gresham booted 58 goals and Carlton-turned-Adelaide star Eddie Betts slotted 51 goals.
He doesn’t attract the same fanfare, but Richmond small forward Jason Castagna’s record stacks up favourably.
Now 52 games into his career, the 22-year-old Tiger produced 54 goals from his first 50 matches despite starting his career as a defender.
But there is a feeling of discontent inside Castagna, who knows he could have had many more majors to his name given his career goalkicking accuracy stands at just 42.5 per cent.
“I just want a bit more consistency in it, whether it’s just on the run or with my set shots,” Castanga said of his hit-and-miss record.
It has not been a case of going back to the drawing board with technique this summer, nor looking to others for advice.
Instead, Castagna has been determined to improve the technique he has already bedded down.
“I found I kind of did that (tweaking) a lot early, tried to look at a lot of other people and focus on new things, try to change my technique and all that sort of stuff,” Castagna said.
“I came to the conclusion that I’m going to stick to one thing, stick to what I do and run with it and see how it goes.”
The off-season goalkicking practice — as well as working on his fitness — hasn’t been without its interruptions.
A lingering syndesmosis sprain in his ankle has meant time in a moon boot, an extended period in the rehabilitation group and being ruled out of featuring in either of the Tigers’ two JLT Community Series matches.
But the ankle has, finally, improved over the past two weeks, with Castagna still hopeful of putting his hand up for selection come Round 1.
“It’s taken a bit longer than I expected which is frustrating but I guess it’s still pre-season so I’m looking at it in a positive way that I could be missing games and I should be right,” Castagna said.
The prospect of playing in a new-look forward line alongside former Gold Coast Suns star Tom Lynch only has Castagna more excited to return to the field.
With a second tall forward crashing packs alongside Jack Riewoldt, the “Mosquito Fleet” of Castagna, Dan Butler and Daniel Rioli may have even more crumbs to feast on this year.
“Personally I’m pretty excited,” Castagna said.
“It will be awesome to have another big fella in there taking a few marks and bringing a few to ground for us small fellas. Tommy’s been awesome, he’s a ripping fella. We haven’t seen much of him on the training track yet, but we obviously know what he’s capable of so we’re really excited to have him in the forward line.”
Echoing recent comments by Riewoldt, Castagna said there was no doubt Richmond was searching for “redemption” this season after a horror preliminary final loss to Collingwood derailed its hopes of claiming back-to-back premierships last year.
While he tasted ultimate success as a premiership player in just his 30th AFL game in 2017, Castagna said there was plenty of hunger from himself and the rest of the playing group to achieve that again.
“It was awesome, but being my first season in there (regularly) I probably didn’t really realise how awesome it was,” Castagna said of the 2017 success.
“It’s a feeling that was pretty amazing and something that we really want to thrive for again this year.”
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/richmond-forward-jason-castagna-has-worked-hard-on-improving-his-goalkicking-accuracy-over-summer/news-story/710557cb5fb89781fc85f7df0e08f8b0
