It all starts with a look.

"The first thing I do is literally just look at the ball," Nick Larkey tells AFL.com.au.

It sounds simple. But then again, for Larkey, goalkicking generally is.

One of the most lethally accurate shots at goal in the game's history, Larkey doesn't have many secrets when it comes to his routine. The North Melbourne goalkicking gun is clever, calculated and creative in most aspects of his life. But as for his special sauce around goal, he is basic. In this case, one look is all it takes.

"There are some flat footys out there," Larkey laughs, justifying the start of his routine.

"Sometimes, you can get a footy that's too pointy. That makes it harder to kick and distance-wise, it doesn't come off the boot as nice. So, I'll look at the ball and press it in if I see that it's too pointy to try and get a nicer, rounder shape."

Larkey's accuracy isn't just anecdotal. He is, statistically, one of the game's true deadeyes in front of goal. He ranks third all-time for scoring accuracy for any player with more than 50 shots at goal. For any V/AFL footballer with more than 200 goals, he is currently the best of the best. Of all-time.

In an in-depth chat at the club's Arden Street headquarters, Larkey is taking AFL.com.au through a meticulous breakdown of what has made his technique so precise. While uncomplicated, Larkey has still taken a scientific approach to his methodology around kicking for goal. His action is the result of years of refinement.

The look kickstarts his routine, but it's the squeeze that makes him feel comfortable in what comes next. To most football fans, Jeremy Cameron has perhaps become the pioneer of 'pressing the ball'; the routine of pinching the footy at either end in an attempt to soften the ends. Larkey has become an unapologetic advocate.

"Everyone has seen 'Jezza' press the ball in," he says.

"It's because some footys, you get them at captain's run and you get that session to kick them in. Some clubs kick them in better than others. The home team provides the footys, which I thought the AFL provides them. But they give the footys to the club and then it's the club's duty to bring them."

Larkey doesn't love a footy that's too pointy. But he hates one that's too soft. Instead, every time he scans the ball, he's searching for the perfectly rounded end. But regardless of whether or not he finds it, his action stays the same.

"I'll always kick every footy the same," Larkey says.

"But it is annoying. The other week, I had a set-shot against the Dees in the second quarter, and the footy was genuinely flat. It was fully flat. I could nearly touch my palms when I was pressing the ball together. It was this dud of a footy.

"In my head, I knew the footy wasn't right. Then I missed it and just yelled, 'It was because of that f***ing footy!' I told the umpire straightaway. I said, 'Mate, that footy is f***ing flat!'"

It was a rarity for Larkey. He doesn't miss many. According to Champion Data, his scoring accuracy hovers at 74.1 per cent from his total number of shots for goal. From set-shots, in particular, he is going at 73.4 per cent. In an era where the game's best forwards are becoming more and more wayward, he is uniquely reliable.

"My routine from there is pretty simple," Larkey says.

"I'll spin the ball 10 times, I'll pick an end of the ball which I like, the end that's a bit more rounded than the other. I take six steps, do a couple of little skips, then I don't think about it after that. All I'm trying to do is just make nice contact with the ball and follow through straight."

Some forwards like to count exactly how many strides they race through during their approach, like a cricket bowler marking the paces in their run-up to the crease. Others like to mark exactly where they'll kick from. Not Larkey.

"I don't mind marking it out with my foot where I've marked it," Larkey says.

"But that's not got anything to do with my routine. It's more to let my defender know that I marked it on them. I'll signal it to them, 'That's exactly where the mark is, so don't go any further over that line'."

V/AFL PLAYERS WITH 200+ GOALS

Instead, Larkey's routine is predominantly honed before the game itself. While his technique is simple, the way he practises his goalkicking is a little more complex and much more demanding. He points towards his former Kangaroos teammate, Ben Brown, as being to thank for that.

While Brown never taught Larkey his exact method at shooting for goal, he instilled plenty of lessons on practice. At every session throughout Larkey's formative years in the League, Brown would be the last one on the Arden Street turf after training, repeating what must have been the 100-odd steps that made up his famous set-shot routine.

From then on, Larkey always wanted to outdo Brown. No one would leave training before him. Now, after every training session – and before every game – North Melbourne's star forward will be practising his shots for goal. Again. And again. And again.

"I feel like a lot of it is feel," Larkey says.

"I get to the game about two hours before, like most players, but before every game I'll go out and take as many set-shots as I possibly can. I'll have most of my shots from within 30m. I reckon I'd slot maybe 28 out of 30 from inside 30m. In my head, then I say, 'OK, I've got it'.

"It's all about developing that feel before the game. Sometimes, in your head, you forget about the art of how to do it. I like getting there early and reassuring myself that I've kicked at 95 per cent or whatever it is from anywhere within 30m out. That just develops feel on the foot."

Larkey isn't just training his action. He's training his brain. Of the hundreds of practice shots he sends through during the week, the overwhelming majority aren't overly challenging ones. Instead, they're from routine angles. Most are from directly in front. Most are from within 20 to 30 metres out. But, as always, there's a reason.

"I've found that it's actually a mental challenge," Larkey says.

"If you're always having shots from 40m out, they're hard to kick straight every time. Every player would find that, consistently at a very high rate, it's hard to kick them all. But if you're within 20m and you're kicking them directly in front, most of them are going through and you're thinking, 'Geez I'm nailing these'.

"A lot of the confidence in executing comes from there, because after it does just become a flow state. When you're out there with no pressure, I'd kick nearly 50 out of 50 shots from 30m directly in front. But that does decrease when I'm in front of a crowd. The pressure of it means it does just become muscle memory."

LARKEY'S SCORING MAP

Unsurprisingly, then, Larkey's accuracy from anywhere within 30m is fantastic. He leaves nothing to chance, burying the shots he should be kicking. Champion Data has his scoring accuracy for shots within 30m at 84.8 per cent. That drifts to 80.7 per cent on shots from within 40m.

Beyond 40m, he still goes at a respectable 59.2 per cent. But there's no doubt his speciality is closer to goal. That could have something to do with Larkey taking a softer wedge approach to his set-shot routine, rather than bringing out the driver on every single kick.

Some kids are trained from a young age to always follow through on your kicks, but Larkey does the opposite. Rather than cannon the ball from any angle or distance, he is a caresser. He will nurse the footy home, even from close range.

"My accuracy is really good inside 30m, but it drops outside of that," Larkey says.

"That's because of how hard I kick the ball. The harder you kick the ball, I feel like there's less margin for error. If your ball-drop is slightly off and you kick it soft, it can still go straight. If you punt it, with the ball-drop slightly off, it'll skew out to the side.

"So, I try to kick it upwards, rather than penetrate all the way through. I feel like you can actually kick the ball nice and straight if you punch it upwards a little bit, instead of trying to pierce it.

"I like to take a bit off them. A lot of my shots, they only just make the distance. Even inside 30m, I'll never punt them all the way into the crowd. That's just always worked for me."

LARKEY'S TYPES OF GOALS

Larkey's favourite shot is obvious, then. If it's anywhere within 40m, and anywhere within a 45-degree angle to the right side of the target, he hardly misses. In fact, from that exact area, Champion Data has him going at 91 per cent from 100 shots.

"Yeah, I do like a little bit of left to right," he says.

"I like a drop punt from a pocket where, if you're facing the goals, it's the right-hand side. The other side, not so much. If I put it a little bit more out there, it fades in and I give myself a better chance. I like any shot from the centre to that right side."

If it sounds basic, that's because it mostly is for Larkey. Where some can complicate their routine, the North Melbourne gun has simplified his. Asked for any last tips on how he's mastered one of the game's most problematic skills, his reply is symbolic of his style.

"I make it sound very technical," he laughs. "But I actually don't think about it too much."