It's often said that to become great at something you need to put in the time, but when does putting too much time into something take away from your performance? In Ronan O'Gara's case, he felt at times he overdid it. 

Speaking on Monday's OTB AM, he spoke about how he would overdo practising his kicking sometimes in his quest for greatness.

"It is unacceptable if you have a competitor at your position that you're not doing more than them.

"So if [Jonny] Wilkinson is there you know probably the reality of it that he is doing a double session.

"He probably did a session at 7:30 am and then he went again at 6:30 pm," O'Gara said.

For him, it's all part of being a great out-half and there are always adjustments you can make to your kicking.

"I changed my kicking and tried to change to a power technique as opposed to a timing kick technique.

"You decide what works for you and then eventually it becomes ingrained in you and you're able to use it when the big pressure moments come," the former Ireland out-half said.

Picture credit: Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE

Player monitoring 

Back in O'Gara and Wilkinson's day, load management was not a thing and there was no sense that overdoing it was actually a bad thing.

"There were times where my quad was hanging off and basically you just went down to our masseur in Cork.

"He spent his day getting knots out of my quads because I had just over kicked and over kicked.

"It was so painful but I just loved it, that was your thrill," the former Munster man said.

With advancements in sports science over the years, everything is measured and players are monitored all the time.

"I remember doing a lot of pre-season training in the summer and we ran a lot but it wasn't measured, then at night I just loved to go kicking.

"You wouldn't be allowed do that anymore because you would be going way over the clock and the mileage that was required," he stated.

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