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Sports Psychology

Altona-demon
in Melbourne Demons

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A few observations on the mental "strength" of our team:

1. Gawn seems to have the yips, and never looks confident kicking set shot.

2. The above applies equally to the following players, Petracca, ANB.  I don't think I am projecting when I say that these players appear to have zero confidence. 

3. Resilience to finish off games - when ahead - mental drop offs. 

4. Attitude/body language at times appears off or "flat" - which is unnecessary.

Does anyone on DL know whether the team has a staff Sports Psychologist, or if this is indeed something that can be worked on.  I don't believe our lack of ruthlessness is physical or system based, I think its between the ears with our team.  Do the professionals put effort into this area, or are they putting too much effort into it?

A couple of parallels (in the set shot space) in other sports, which i'd be intrigued on whether anyone has insights on:

1. Penalty taking in soccer - arguably higher pressure - same dynamics as a set shot - What Percentage of Penalties are Scored? [Stats Breakdown] (sqaf.club).  Some interesting insights appear that there is a statistical skew towards older shot takers, kicking with medium power. 

2. Conversions or penalty shot taking in rugby - is there anything we can learn here from mental attitude of players who can kick at 80%+ when in a routine set shot? I'm not sure any players can kick at this level in the AFL?

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    Yes they have a sports psych.

    Through the AFLPA, athletes can also access psychs from a welfare perspective, and these psychs often ALSO have experience in the context of sport.

    My two cents...

    'Mental attitude' is about your willingness to experience a range of discomforts, (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations) in the service of what matters (values).

    Let's assume that each athlete can execute a particular task, really really well in training. What shifts, on game day, is their relationship to their internal experiences. Thus, their attention moves away from task, and goes to trying to fix discomfort (anxiety/frustration/fatigue) at the expense of replicating the same behaviours under stress. For example, this looks like a biomechanical alteration ('technique!') when kicking for goal.

    The compassionate question to ask is even with honing skills around minfudlness and willingness to experience discomfort to remain on task in stressful contexts... how realistic is it to ask players to do it for 22 weeks straight, in each and every moment of every match, particularly when they are coming up against other humans experiencing the same things...

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