If nervous before a game: be grateful. Nervous tension is due to the release of adrenaline etc. which serves to improve performance. It may even make you feel tired and yawn (coaches often mistake that for low motivation and try to pump the player up when, in fact, he needs to relax down to "optimal arousal") If you are nervous it means you are taking the game seriously and, if you win, the pleasure will be greater.

If not focused on the game: take just 5 minutes to think the game through from beginning to end and how you will feel if you lose.

If being badly beaten: if they have a run on, man up to stop the flow. Play tagger but stay between him and the ball at all times. Don't stop playing attacking football / don't become too defensive. Continue to go for your shots and play as though the current situation is a temporary aberration.

If out of form: use your imagination. Use the "Don Bradman": technique. If I was batting poorly against ny particular bowler (which happened often as I was a very ordinary batsman), I would walk to square leg and imagine that I was Don Bradman and that the bowler, rather than having confidence against me, was worried that he was bowling to Don Bradman. I would then walk back to the crease and imagine that I was Don Bradman and found that I could hit the ball. If you are out of form, go onto the football field and imagine that you have been best on ground for the past six weeks and that Hawthorn and Essendon have both just invited you to play for them.

Whether you are in form or out of form you still have the same arms, the same legs, you are the same height, etc. The only difference is in your mental approach to the game. Therefore a loss of form can be beaten by mental approach.

If its close in a big game: the big temptation is to stop doing the thing that you've been doing all year, e.g. moving the ball around taking risks with attacking handballs, passing the ball around the forward line etc. The temptation is to start bombing the ball along for safety. That is an error. It is better to continue to attack and to go for the shots regardless of the situation. Towards the end of a close game there is nothing a back man likes better than to see the ball bombed down to a mass of defensive players. In contrast, it is very unnerving for them to see the football moved around at great speed and to see players running in numbers ahead of them.

They start having to double guess the likely direction they will have to run in. Remember, good players respond to tight situations by sticking to basics and playing percentage moves, not going for miraculous, spectacular stuff.