Nat Fyfe has delved deeper into the mental side of his goalkicking, as he works to establish a more permanent role in Fremantle’s forward line in 2023.

It comes off the back of a significant amount of work alongside forwards coach Jaymie Graham to develop and improve upon his goalkicking craft, attempting to shred the self-imposed ‘burden’ associated with it.

“I have been putting a lot of work in and I’m just starting to see some of those results from a lot of work invested,” Fyfe told 6PR. 

“I had to really go to hell and back with my mental game on my goalkicking because it became quite a burden to step out there in front of goals.

"I have got this year to continue to work on that.”

Get on board with a 2023 Fremantle membership!

Training primarily as a forward over the summer, Fyfe feels his connection is on the increase – confident of improved results in front of goal.

“I am starting to feel some synchronicity with how I’m hitting the ball…and feeling really confident in front of goal,” Fyfe said.

“It won’t be a finished product when I step out round one, but I’m confident if I keep squeezing intention into it then the results will come.”

The two-time Brownlow medallist has bagged 170 goals from 209 games over his career but said the goalkicking issues had arrived essentially ‘out of nowhere’ towards the start of 2021.

While difficult, Fyfe has embraced the challenge to devote himself to his forward craft.

His potential impact as a forward was highlighted in round 17 against St Kilda last year, where he kicked three goals to go with his 21 disposals and 10 contested possessions.

Fyfe turns focus to next challenge
Fyfe: A step towards a premiership
Brayshaw eyes bigger impact with midfield growth

“You can go from being completely confident and everything subconsciously coming to life and clear of mind - to all of a sudden you have a bunch of demons for different reasons,” Fyfe said.

“The goalkicking one sort of developed out of nowhere, I kicked seven points all in general play at the start of 2021 then I kicked a couple more goals and a couple more points from set shots and then all of a sudden, I had this goalkicking problem which I kind of created myself and then it got worse and worse.

“There is a couple ways you can go from there, you can stop taking shots and accept that you will always be a bad goalkicker or you can do the work and get through it.

“You can keep failing until you figure it out and that is where I am at the moment and I feel like I am in a great space to get some good results from that.”