Petanque tips. Team play continued

Teamplay,

Now we look at belief, we have all said "I don’t believe it, if you would have tried to take that boule out you could never have managed it. This is usually said when your own team has taken out your own boule safely tucked in a position from which you thought it could never have been shot. Actually you are seeing that it is possible although risky to try to take out boule in this position which leads us on to the last thought,

Finish off a game

3. And lastly, when you practice, try not to just shoot or point boule without any purpose. By this, I mean, set up scenarios of difficult situations that you may find yourself coming up against in competitions. I use to set up an end where there were various boules already placed in such a difficult way that the final boule I had left to play of a point or a shot that I had to achieve otherwise we would lose the game. It was almost impossible to win the point but I would practice time and time again, until, not only did I pull off the shot but also I could do it two times in a row to prove it was not just good luck. I found that, when confronted with this dilemma in a game I am almost laughing as I knew I could call upon that visual memory I could achieve it and it wouldn’t involve luck as I had already proved to myself more than once that it was possible!

This is also true on closing a game off when you have boule in hand. At top level you normally only get one chance to win. Practice difficult shots or just standard difficulty shots when you need three to finish can be a bonus if you are holding with two boule left. Make them count in practice so they count in a game.