Watch his grubbers he hits them really hard so close to the ground. Then go watch young Walker from the Roosters. He drops the ball on his foot about 40cm from the ground in an over and end kind of grubber. It bounces up in goal instead of running along the ground dead.
Brooks needs to change his technique. We need way more repeat sets.
This was perfectly exemplified once by Benji when the ball actually hit the ground first. That was a bad kick, but showed the technique needed.
Funny thing about the bounce of the ball is that playing Aussie rules you learn at like 10 years old that the ball when rolling seams vertical/"end over end", it follows a 'rhythm'.
It's like a pulse oximeter (or heart rate monitor) where you see the low amplitude waves (along the ground) followed every 4th or 5th by a high amplitude one (bounces higher). No idea about the physics of it, but kick a ball hard enough like this and the pattern repeats until it stops.
It's no great skill, just one that is a very common occurrence in footy compared to league.
I do confess though it drives me crazy seeing a winger botch an uncontested try because they've tried to ground it or pick it up out of its rhythm!
Any short kicker at nrl level should be able to kick it like this. To me the hard part is getting it through the legs of the defenders. I think it takes great composure, but Brooks looks like he tends to kick and hope.
So yeh, I could kick it like that with either foot tomorrow, but doing it in an nrl game and getting it through the line of defence, perfectly weighted for someone running through for it... That's a different matter entirely!
Fwiw, the best kick I've ever seen in rugby league was Cooper Cronk in a SOO at Suncorp where he kicked for his left winger who caught it on the full and put it down to score. As good a kick as you'll see in either nrl or afl.
... Well that was about 53 times longer than I thought it would be! 🤣
