Kick Power and Kicking long over the dead ball line

07/11/17 01:58
Ideally, kick accuracy would increase the chances of an intelligently weighted kick but it does not.
13/11/17 11:34
Oxford Rugby Union :

Ideally, kick accuracy would increase the chances of an intelligently weighted kick but it does not.



My thoughts exactly which is why I have trained that (a bit) and not kick power. I posted this original question as I have had a 10 for a good number of seasons now that I play at 9 and have him maxed out on a lot of key skills, but am holding back on the kicking skills. Having played a lot of players higher up than me, I see this problem as a huge stumbling block - the most frequent is when they steal a scrum off me and their 9 kicks - often it goes dead and I've seem many a half a game wasted on reset and repeats. I would therefore advise anyone who likes to buy good young players and keep them for many seasons to not train the kicking skills at all on your 9 (and/or set his individual kicking strat to close to 0 so he just becomes a distributer and attacker). Keep them low and there is a much reduced chance of kicking long, but still retaining chip and chase possibilities.

It's probably unrealistic to extend this to your 10 also, but not totally unfeasible. Don't train those two skills and say have your 15 take the goal kicks and kick offs. I think once you get to a certain level though (I'm 18 at the moment), you simply have to bin any sort of kicking game in favour of a pass and penetrate type game as the kick long problem is a real issue. The one exception being your full back/back 3 to clear your lines maybe if you play a high rear cover game.

Just my musings anyway.