I have played rugby since the age of five for London Irish and I am now 18. I stopped playing last season, partly because of my A-Levels and partly because of a lack of confidence as well as other reasons. I am going back this year but I am not sure how I will do. Whenever I was playing the season before, I was constantly affraid of messing up and therefore tried to do very little else other than that of my specific positional requirements. I was always conscious of tackling in open spaces so when I had to, I panicked. I know that I can physically do it, I just have some sort of mental block. I also need to change my position which requires me to confront this problem after taking a year out. Is there anything that can help me.

-- David Flavin (dmj_flav@yahoo.com), July 27, 2000