Useful info merged from a long comment string -DES
This is football commentary, not an attempt to speak grammatical English. It makes perfect sense to the football fans, for whom it is intended. Sports commentators are not hired for their knowledge of English. –
Ronald Sole
Even a non-sports fan like me knows that the object of football is to kick the ball into the goal, so it's not necessary to explain that 'he kicked the ball so that it hit the goalpost'. –
Kate Bunting
This is really just an example of jargon, every sport is going to be littered with words and phrases that are hard to understand without knowledge of the sport. Of course it's hardly limited to sports, everything has in-group speak –
eps
There is a word missing. That word is kick. So you have, John Stead['s kick] hit the post. Still no mention of the ball. Everyone knows John's kick means - John's kick of the ball. If his foot had hit the post instead of the ball, you might say, John Stead's kick resulted in his foot hitting the post. –
EllieK
Depending on the angle though, a ball could hit the post and still bounce into the goal, scoring a point. So it's a bit ambiguous whether it hit the post and bounced out or hit the pole and bounced in. From the context, I'd have to assume it was out? But it is steeped in some obscure jargon that I'm not familiar with. – Darrel
As a point of clarification: Am I correct in understanding we are talking about en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football here? – Drazisil
@MichaelRichardson he "thundered another good opportunity over the bar" - that is, one time he hit the post, and the next time he went over the bar. –
Karu
This is perfectly grammatical English. Some of the expressions are a little quaint, but it's definitely not poor English. –
Dawood
@DawoodibnKareem There are several specific ambiguities here: 1) Is this gridiron, association, or rugby "football"?, 2) I'm used to "jab" as a type of punch from boxing, but that's probably not the meaning here. Depending on context it may indicate moving the ball with either foot or hand. 3) "Hit the post" and "thundered another good opportunity" both sound like "make the grade" or "succeed" to my American ears - but several Answerers have interpreted them differently. 4) "Flick-on" suggests to me a rapid motion of a single finger, which doesn't fit the context –
Sarah Messer
@SarahMesser Thank you, that's interesting. I suppose it is easier to understand if you know what sport is being talked about, and don't have to guess. Of course, reading this in context, you'd know which sport was being played. I guessed Association Football. It can't be Rugby - they don't have strikers. I don't know enough about American Football to know whether that's a possibility; but if it were American Football, then "thundered another good opportunity over the bar" would presumably be a good thing. I can't bring myself to hear "hit the post" as a positive though, for any sport. –
Dawood ibn Kareem
Also posted on another site: UsingEnglish.com - Hit the post –
Andrew T.
Source of the quotation: News Shopper - Brad Luck for Friedel –