Secrets of the boot boys: Ivan Cleary

By PETER JESSUP

NRL RECORD: 185 games, 549 goals, 1 field goal, 1355 pts

Ivan Cleary credits a start in soccer as his launching pad to become one of rugby league's most accurate goal-kickers.

That's where he learnt to strike the ball.

Cleary played the round ball game up to age eight. By the time he chose league and made the team at The Forest High School in Beacon Hill, inland from Manly, he was a natural selection as kicker.

After that, as a professional career beckoned, he worked solidly on technique. "It adds your value." But only in the past three to four seasons has he become comfortable with the role and the way he goes about it.

And temperament is critical, Cleary feels.

"You have to be cool about it. You have to know yourself. You have to believe the way you go about it is right and that takes some years I think."

He was not first-choice kicker for two years when at North Sydney, with Jason Taylor preferred, but otherwise has always kicked goals at Manly, the Roosters then the Warriors.

"I was always fiddling with my approach - changing the run-up or the tilt of the ball or the amount of sand I used. But I haven't changed anything for three or four years now."

He's always aimed above 80 per cent success rate and after hitting a mid-season high of 86 is now running around 84.

He uses the Daryl Halligan-designed tee, no more sand. He takes four steps back, two smaller ones to the side, walks up to the ball rather than running and lifts it off his instep while bringing his head up, but without specific reverence to where the posts are.

"If you do everything right in striking the ball it will go over the posts," he said. He sometimes doesn't watch the flight, turning to return to his kick-off position, because he knows the result.

"I watch if it's windy and there's some doubt. And if it's critical."

There's always pressure. He likes that. The pressure rises if it's a match-decider and he feels that helps rather than hinders him.

"You always feel pressure going for points and it's a matter of how you control it. Pressure is important because it helps you focus."

Crowd reaction he puts to the side. If there's booing or insults being thrown "you try and block it out but of course you hear it, sometimes you hear all of it and other times - I guess when you're kicking well - you hear less."

It doesn't put him off. "I enjoy kicking."

Captain Stacey Jones decides if and when penalty shots are taken, with coach Daniel Anderson happy to leave it to the pair. Cleary said he waits for Jones to ask. "Sometimes his body language suggests he's wondering so I'll throw my two-bobs' worth in. I'll tell him if I can't kick it - there's no point in hitting and hoping."

The standard of kicking in league is rising because tight statistical recording shows how valuable it is. Some like the Bulldogs' Hasim El Masri, who leads the goalkicking records for 2002, have been trained up, in his case by Halligan, and practised until perfect.

Cleary doesn't do much preparation or practice now. When he hits a form slump he kicks a league ball at a soccer goal. "I practice my strike. I don't worry about posts. Get the strike right and it'll go over the posts."

He should know.

He holds the record for most points scored by an individual in one season in the Aussie premiership, 284 from 13 tries and 116 goals for the Roosters in 1998.

He reckons Jones can do the job once he's gone. And that there is no right or wrong way to do it, so there's little point in his trying to pass on knowledge.

His best advice: Refine your technique then "believe that what you're doing is right."