When Michael Jamison “got on” to the first of two 70-metre torpedo punts from the Lockett Stand end of Etihad Stadium in the final quarter of last Saturday night’s NAB Cup match against Fremantle, watching on in wonderment was the man who made the kick an art form, the club’s 268-game dual premiership full-back Geoff Southby.

“I was salivating when I saw it. Seeing ‘Jamo’ kick the torpedo made me think of how the cycle has turned from the early 1970s to 2013. It’s taken 40 years to happen,” Southby said this week.

“I remember as a kid watching Richmond’s Fred Swift kick drop kick the ball from the kick-off and when I first came to Carlton I went with the drop kick until Ron Barassi banned them. My next option was the ‘torp’ because the theory in those days was to kick long to the ruckman and get the footy as far away from the goals as you possibly could.

“By the late 1970s players were already starting to go the shorter option and kick to guys on their own. The torpedo suddenly became high-risk, but I never believed it. Even if you fluff the torp you normally kick it far enough to prevent somebody else from kicking a goal on the way back.”

Jamison revealed that he practiced booting “the barrel” in the days leading up to the Dockers’ contest – with little success initially.

“I actually tried to kick a few at training during the week, but I kicked them all sideways,” Jamison said.

“I tried one in the second quarter of the game and it went nowhere, so I thought ‘That’s it, I’ll put it away’, but in the last I had a go at a couple and fortunately got onto them.”

The good news for Southby and co. is that Jamison is likely to persevere with the kick “because Mick’s certainly a fan and as long as I’m ‘hitting’ them all right in the warm-up I’ll give them a go in the game”.

Southby insisted that the torpedo punt was well worth persevering with in today’s footy.

“I think there’s a place for it, I’ve seen Dustin Fletcher do it and if a player can boot the torpedo why not get an advantage from it?,” he said.