It’s not called a nose bleed for no good reason.
You know it yourself, don’t lie. A forage forward, no bother to you. A dinked pass, piece of piss. A shot? What the hell just happened?
It’s been reported that, in some cases, GAA players don’t even remember the 3.7 seconds before or after taking a shot. For 7.4 seconds of their lives, there’s a blank that they can no longer recall and there’s blood that they cannot trace the origin of.
The decision-making process is just a black space of nothingness. They only remember the fear and the panic and the cold sweats as they got closer and closer to the posts and then… nothing. Black out. Blood.
Steven McDonnell will never no such inadequacy but he can’t get his head around why it would come about either.
Speaking on The GAA Hour, the Armagh legend explained the simplest form of shooting and he’s adamant that anyone can do it.
In his mind, it’s just that people change how they kick the ball when they decide to shoot – and they don’t need to.
“If I send a guy 50 yards away from me and you ask any player to pinpoint a pass to that guy, nine times out of 10 you’re going to find him in and around the chest or at least a metre apart from him. Most players in the country are able to do that,” McDonnell said.
“What is a point, ultimately? A point is a pass over the bar. With a bigger area to hit.
“Players sometimes get panicky and are erratic with their ‘pass’ when it comes to shooting. They should just ultimately see it as a pass which is going a wee bit higher than normal.
“If you put a player standing in the goalmouth underneath the black spot, any inter-county player from 45 yards out will pinpoint a ball to him nine times out of 10.
“So when you’re scoring a point, you’ve got a wider area. Just pass the ball over the bar.”
