Quote leeds owl="leeds owl""With enough practice, virtually anyone can do it" Hmmm, yes they can, but to what standard? If your theory was anywhere near conceivable, every single team would have a player with the same success rate as Sinny, it's clearly a flawed theory. Sinfield has a God given talent, he's also practiced damn hard, but never the less he is a better kicker than most others through sheer talent. What you preach when applied to the golf world would suggest that any man prepared to put enough hours in could be the next Tiger Woods, completely unrealistic. What about darts ?, a little board no more than a few feet away, surely we could all win millions if only we put the practice in? It's just not that simple. Don't you think that all Superleague clubs that struggle to find a consistently good kicker would just choose one and make him practice relentlessly till he never missed ? The next time you're playing golf with hopelessly bad mate, just tap him on the shoulder and tell him another twenty hours down the line he'll be a scratch golfer.'"
It isn't a flawed theory. It's pretty much modern sport. Read some books on modern athletes. Especially 'Outliers'. It's almost universally accepted that the basis of the 10,000 hours rule holds true.
Kicking, especially, is a physical action. It isn't creative in any way. You don't need to have vision or decision-making etc as you would for say a half to unlock a defence. Of course some people find some things easier than others. Which might mean they have to do less practice than someone who found it harder to reach the same level.
Then of course it comes down to the quality of the practice. Which is where your kicking coaches come in. And would assist with any issues.
But kicking a rugby ball off a cone and through some posts doesn't require any special ability or talent. Just a special amount of dedication and practice.
Why don't all teams do it? Because it takes a lot of extra practice and they might well prioritise other areas. Leeds are also unique (in my opinion) in having a player like Sinfield at the club as a major part of the team for such a long time. Most other clubs have much more flux in their players and so may be unwilling to commit their player to large amounts of extra practice that won't pay off for a long time.
The counter to your argument is that somehow some people are born with the natural talent to perform an unnatural and manufactured action ( goal kicking) and somehow, despite the very small talent pool RL picks from, players like Sinfield, Eaton, El-Masri etc have made their way through. Which would seem very strange that nature had decided that some babies would be born with the natural ability to kick a ball in a fashion that wasn't even used when they were born.
It seems infinitely more likely that those players are born with the kind of mental skills that means they effectively "enjoy" kicking and they practiced bloody hard at it. Otherwise Sinfield wouldn't have needed the help of coaches like Alred.
