The yips - and how to fix it?

[briztoon]

Lynch talks about it on the Roar Deal today as well.

 

[luthor]

jonny Wilkinson had a tactic where he didn't actually look at the goal, but identified a person/visual landmark behind the goal - when kicking for goal he was actually trying to hit this specific place (Not thinking about the goals at all). I wonder if anyone else has tried this? (You'd have to think so)

I'm as certain as I can be that this was the method Tony Lockett used.......pick out a spectator sitting behind the goals. Which spectator he picked would depend on the distance he thought he had to cover to kick a foot pass to that person.

So if he had a kick for goal from 50 he'd pick a spectator sitting in a relatively "low" position in the stand. If a 15 meter kick he'd pick our someone "high up"

I think the idea was to be consistent with the "force" he applied to each kick for goal.

 

[DashinD]

The bloke on the Trends podcast (forget his name) mentioned kicking the ball high is important, and that in the old days they used to practice kicking over a tree. You often see when distance isn’t an issue they try to stab at it and keep it low, completely deviating from their natural action.

 

[brizrider]

Drop punts are overrated.

Yes, agree! I put this on the 'What unpopular AFL opinions do you have?' thread on the main board and got no love for it but it's true. Tumble and flat punts and even torps work pretty well for most set shot distances and get much more of the boot on the ball.

 

[Sherrinator]

The bloke on the Trends podcast (forget his name) mentioned kicking the ball high is important, and that in the old days they used to practice kicking over a tree. You often see when distance isn’t an issue they try to stab at it and keep it low, completely deviating from their natural action.

Definitely a thing. As a kid, we had a tall Tipuana tree and the “hang time” type action encouraged good follow-through. It’s like players are scared to kick it post height or something, like it won’t count as a goal.