Beauden Barrett says his good goalkicking form on the European tour is because he’s accepted he’ll have bad days off the tee.
Barrett’s goalkicking was called into question after he went two from six in the loss to the Springboks in Wellington in September, before bouncing back strongly on the European tour.
The first five-eighth said the biggest thing was accepting he’d have one or two bad days a year kicking for goal, as he did in the loss to South Africa.
“Once or twice a year I’ll have a bad day and that’s normal, at the time it was hard to accept that but that’s reality and the sooner I can get over it and accept it the better,” he said.
“I’ve kicked pretty well since”.
The loss to Ireland even included a drop goal from Barrett, who said it may be a sign of things to come ahead of next year’s World Cup.
“I’ve dropped a couple of goals, just from a mentality point of view it’s nice to bank that away,” he said.
“We’ve been working on that skill, all of us, and Fozzie (assistant coach Ian Foster) has been great, I guess it’s good to know that we get confidence from doing things previously”.
“So, if I have to fall to that option in the future it’ll be a bit easier”.
Barrett said his normal mindset of playing rarely includes a drop kick, “but it could well be coming World Cup time”.
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