“Snap-kicking” in elite Australian football: how foot preference and task difficulty highlight potential benefits from bilateral skill training

Benjamin B. Moore, Nicholas J. O’Dwyer, Roger D. Adams and Stephen Cobley

International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 2017, vol. 17, issue 1-2, 109-120

Abstract: “Snap-kicks” in Australian Football (AF) occur when players can potentially score but are facing away from the goal, necessitating a kick across the body or over the opposite shoulder. In games, situations arise for both right- and left-foot snaps, but players often strive to use their preferred rather than non-preferred foot. We consider whether such a strategy is optimal and in this study examine whether foot preference and task difficulty affect snap-accuracy. Accordingly, 27 elite AF players (19 “right-footers”, 8 “left-footers”) were tasked with executing snap-kicks at easy and more difficult (acute) angles using both feet. As expected, accuracy was greater with the preferred (76%) than the non-preferred foot (57%) and greater for easy (78%) than difficult kick angles (56%), however there were no accuracy differences due to player footedness. Surprisingly, given the relative difficulty, snap-kicks from the more difficult angle with the preferred foot could be made with a similar level of accuracy (67%) to kicks with the non-preferred foot from the easier angle (69%). Results suggest that using the non-preferred foot for snap-kicks at goal in appropriate situations during games could increase scoring affordances, and that training on the non-preferred foot may benefit individual and team performance.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1080/24748668.2017.1304030

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