THERE IS A different sort of pressure on goal-kickers.
Even though, when the game is in full swing they are required to file in and take part in the minute-by-minute processes that help to provide a release for the pressure, a constant tension remains within.
So many fine margins rest ultimately on whether the goal-kicker is in enough of a rhtyhm to make a difference on the scoreboard.
That pressure has rarely been so perfectly captured leaving the body as it was in the below series of images.
INPHO’s Dan Sheridan caught the magic moment when Ireland Women had sealed a victory nobody thought possible. They had beaten the mighty Black Ferns 17 – 14. For the first time in 23 years, New Zealand’s women had been bettered and nothing bottled the elation, colour and passion like Sheridan’s camera.
Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO
Fiona Coghlan’s side were camped in Kiwi territory for the final minutes of the game. By that stage, holding on was more of a matter of mental strength than physical. And after Briggs had booted the ball as far as she could across the right-hand touchline she turned, begging for the whistle.
Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO
“I was looking for a good group of senior players. I was focusing on Briggsy and it happened to be herself, Nora Stapleton, Ashleigh Baxter and Tania Rosser,” Sheridan explains.
“They just went absolutely ballistic and their emotion just kicked in. It was fantastic. I just stuck with them through a full sequence of images.”