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Young Max King will have the next six months to swallow “a hard, bitter pill” after the Saints effectively crashed out of the finals race on Friday night.
King couldn’t buy a goal against the Lions at Marvel Stadium, and ended up becoming “a bit of a liability” with five behinds in the 15-point loss – four of those coming from directly in front.
Fox Footy’s Garry Lyon said King now had to “live with” the misses in the off-season.
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“He had a horrible night in the end,” he said.
“I think in the end he’s going: ‘I don’t wanna go near it’. And then it becomes infectious.
“That’s pressure. That’s season on the line pressure and that’s a fail. You’re going to have to live with that for six months. That’s a hard bitter pill to live with.”
But one player who admits to having experience with the “yips”, Cameron Mooney, says it’s not all doom and gloom for young King.
“He’s going to leave 300 goals on the table if he doesn’t get it right. You can see it in his head,” Mooney said on Fox Footy Live.
“We know he has the capability, but I just implore him to keep working hard on his goal kicking routine.
“I had the yips to the end of my career … this bloke’s only a young kid – he’s got all the opportunity in the world to get it right.
“I remember taking marks inside 50 and I didn’t want to take the shot.
“It can change. (Early in his career) Tom Hawkins spent a pre-season with Blake Caracella – just one person in his ear just helping him. He ended up turning into one of the best kicks in the competition for goal Tommy.”
Mooney said there was good news for King, with the Saints already employing the man to help the youngster through his issue.
“It’s hard to fix in the moment. I can see it in his eyes, I can see it in his face,” Mooney said.
“His face was almost drained (kicking for goal). He was nervous, throwing the ball around.
“He’s got Jarryd Roughead, one of the best forwards we’ve seen in the last 20 years, he’s going to be OK.
“I just implore him to work with Roughy – no one else.
“The worst thing you can do is get advice from 100 different people all week, every different day. There’s nothing worse as a player.”
Fox Footy’s Nick Riewoldt said he understood the disappointment King would be feeling post-match, as the Saints are all but out of the finals race with the loss to Brisbane.
“King’s had four set shots from directly in front. In the end, he just looked completely devoid of confidence, his routine was broken to the point that, we watched him pretty close in the last five or 10 minutes and I just don’t think he wanted the ball,” Riewoldt said.
“We’ve all been there, I’ve been there and it’s a horrible feeling. When you lose confidence in your routine and your ability to go back and even make reasonably good contact, it’s a horrible feeling.”
Jonathan Brown said King needed to get his run up right if he was to overcome the goal kicking woes, and that would involve plenty of post-season analysis.
“The set shots were relatively easy set shots, they weren’t on tight angles,” he said.
“You’ve just gotta go back and suck up the pressure and put them through the big sticks if you want to play in finals.
“The worst thing you can do in those pressure situations or those pressure kicks is lose your momentum in your run up. Because you’ve got to hit the ball perfectly on your boot. It doesn’t allow any margin of error.
“At least if you’ve got momentum and you can miskick it slightly, and it’ll still go reasonably straight.
“He’s just got to learn it and educate himself in that situation.
“You’ve go back and watch the tapes and you learn about yourself in those situations and go: ‘Righto, my tendency is I lose momentum or I lean back in these situations’, so that when you get in those situations next time, you know how to try and override them and correct the behaviour.
“He’ll learn from this.”
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