AFL great Jason Dunstall says Joe Daniher needs to break down his goal kicking action and start again.

The Essendon spearhead has kicked just six goals and five behinds across his four games.

At times, Daniher’s goalkicking woes have got to the point where he has attempted to snap goals where a drop punt would normally be appropriate.

He also drew attention for handballing a straightforward shot to Josh Green — bungling the scoring opportunity — during Essendon’s loss to the Bulldogs.

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“He frustrates the hell out of me because he’s such a talent, but if I had the opportunity I’d be saying ‘you’ve got to break this down and start again from the basics,’” Dunstall said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.

“Because at the moment he’s got an incredible psychological battle on his hands and he’s basically avoiding it by kicking around the corner.

“So until you can sit there and admit ‘I’m a poor kick for goal and I need to make some radical changes’ and really buy into it, I don’t think much is going to change.”

Dunstall highlighted an example when Daniher kicked a wayward snap shot on a relatively straightforward shot at goal.

Joe Daniher. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

“When you’re — that’s not even 45 degrees — and you’re kicking around the corner, you’ve got problems,” he said.

“But if players do that (you’re) assuming they’ve trained the house down doing it, then they (should) have a much better record than kicking drop punts. It’s nearly gone out on the full.”

Dunstall said the Bombers needed to tackle Daniher’s goalkicking issues head-on, and be prepared to cop some “egg on the face” as he figured things out, rather than be left with a situation where he was never prepared to kick a drop punt.

“I think someone has to (break it down) and he’s got to accept that he’s doing it and it might look a little bit funny,” he said.

“You know, we saw Levi Casboult trying some different things — and I’m not suggesting he’s going to go right back to that sort of level.

“But you’ve got to be prepared to cop a little bit of egg on the face and at the moment I don’t think they want to do that and they’re actually avoiding the issue by allowing him to kick around the corner.

“So what happens if you become adept at doing that and all of a sudden you mark one in the same spot and the siren goes and you’ve got to kick it to win?

“So you’re lining up with the mental application that ‘oh I haven’t kicked one of these all day and I can’t kick it around the corner, which is my favourite kick — what hope have I got of kicking it?’”

Joe Daniher. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

When asked if he would help Daniher if the forward called him for advice, Dunstall said he would be happy to talk to the Bomber.

“I’d have a chat with him, yeah no problems. He would have a million people in his ear — he doesn’t need one more,” Dunstall said.

“I’d have a conversation with anyone but you don’t need to do that.

“I mean, you’d hope he’s got the right people working with him and they’ve actually got some plans in place. I’m just not seeing that at the moment — it worries me.”