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Sir Clive's Views on Wallaby Kicking

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Gnostic

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
Gatland was also very critical of of Beale's kicking.

For me at the elite level minute issues with technique mean the difference between under pressure consistency and a dropping percentage. The options the Wallabies had after Lilo was injured are all serviceable kickers, JOC (James O'Connor), Barnes and Beale. They are not anywhere near the proficiency of Halfpenny or Sexton or Farrell, and that is on the basis of multiple matches and not just this single incident, which could otherwise be written off as an unusual occurrence.

In this as in quite a few other areas the Wallabies management has IMO failed to develop the available talent in a proper manner. I certainly don't see H/penny as being a more talented player than the Australian options, but his technique has certainly been refined since he first came on the scene.
 
Zander

Zander

Ron Walden (29)
Australia has a culture problem on goal kicking, right down to grassroots level. The goal kicker is always the first picked in a team.
 
Inside Shoulder

Inside Shoulder

Nathan Sharpe (72)
Zander said:
Australia has a culture problem on goal kicking, right down to grassroots level. The goal kicker is always the first picked in a team.
Click to expand...

I assume your point is that you should pick the best footballers and if we had a better culture they would all be good kickers and you'd just go with the best.
Because only some of players can kick we have to pick a kicker.
Is that the point?
 
Bruce Ross

Bruce Ross

Ken Catchpole (46)
Predictably, Sir Clive exhibits characteristic Pommy bias and arrogance in the Daily Mail article:

"Some people went away from Saturday’s Test with the impression the Lions were lucky to pull off a victory. I simply don’t agree.

The Lions dominated the game and it would have been an injustice if they had lost to that late penalty."

And of course he's by no means the first to draw attention to Robbie's kick-coaching-by-correspondence method. I myself have had a couple of goes despite the obvious problem that having stated the reality there is nothing left to be satirised

But what I want to draw attention to is the fact that what we have here is a quite long and insightful article written about rugby in the context of a particular match. And it started me searching my memory bank for an equivalent piece published in an Australian newspaper, and I literally cannot recall one. I think this reflects a very serious problem with our sport here. Rugby is arguably the most cerebral of sports given its complexity as a game and indeed the complexity of its Laws. It deserves better than the sort of fish wrapper pap we are accustomed to, and which I have just recalled I no longer even read.

Rugby is a game to be savoured, to be thought about and discussed with fellow adherents which is why I become so frustrated with the constant barrage of sound and "entertainment" we are forced to sit through whenever we attend professional games. And I do not exempt my own club from guilt over this type of aural assault, which may be a reason why I enjoy going to Colts matches.

The Daily Mail article has some quite relevant images interspersed with the prose, cleverly capped off with one of our Robbie doing his best Maxwell Smart.
.
 
JSRF10

JSRF10

Dick Tooth (41)
Beale and JOC (James O'Connor) are just such outrageously talented blokes, that everything seems to happen easily on the pitch for them. They may just take a similar approach to their goal kicking, just for the record I don't know if they do, but they need to realize just because they are outstanding footballers doesn't mean they are outstanding goal kickers.

I know Jonny Sexton has his own personal kicking coach, alongside Ireland and Leinster's own kicking coaches. KB (Kurtley Beale) and JOC (James O'Connor) would be best advised to take a similar approach and invest in their own kicking coach if the ARU aren't willing to pay for one that can work with them on a daily basis.
 
Scoey

Scoey

Tony Shaw (54)
To add on to what fatprop has already said, I took my wife to the Lions game on Sat night. She was amazed with the enthusiasm that the Lions fans cheered having had little exposure to NH Rugby and it's supporters. We scored first and they quietened down a touch then they got a 3 pointer and they went ape!

At this point my wife asked, what had happened. Not because she wasn't paying attention but because she was confused with the celebration as she thought, "that they had only kicked a penalty goal" and the reaction didn't correlate with the 'event'. I explained to her much what FP did above and she said, "Holy crap! I hope they don't score a try!!" :D
 
mxyzptlk

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
JSRF10 said:
I know Jonny Sexton has his own personal kicking coach, alongside Ireland and Leinster's own kicking coaches. KB (Kurtley Beale) and JOC (James O'Connor) would be best advised to take a similar approach and invest in their own kicking coach if the ARU aren't willing to pay for one that can work with them on a daily basis.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Sexton uses Dave Alred as well. He's a regular biomechanical Yoda -- works with golfers too.
 
Ignoto

Ignoto

Peter Sullivan (51)
fatprop said:
It is a cultural thing, goal kicking is just something you do after scoring a try in Aus.

In the mud and slime of a NH winter it is something you do instead of scoring a try
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At the pinnacle end of Australian rugby, cultural issues shouldn't be coming up. Poor scrummaging, poor kicking etc are coachable areas. In the early 2000's Jones didn't care for Props who could scrummage and only saw it as a reset mechanism. To this day, we're still paying for this short sightedness. It's exactly the same thing for kicking, we paid for it last night because we're too cheap to get a full time coach with our players. The ARU's hack of using Skype didn't work out, funny that?

The All Blacks have a huge emphasis on scoring tries, but they've had some quality kickers (especially carter). Someone in the last decade at the ARU should have realised this and actually brought someone in.
 
Gnostic

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
A cultural thing. Really. Please. This is just another coverup to excuse a lack of foresight and true professional approach to the development of Australian Elite Players in all aspects of the game, and no I don't just blame Deans.

This is the elite level of Rugby and at this level regardless of what the part time fan may think those here (the rugby fanatics) and most players will realise the importance of kicking from both the Tee and hand to Rugby. If they don't then they will learn very quickly and indeed a cursory glance at history will show how many games the Wallabies have won due to good kick execution, most memorably last gasp kicks.

This lack of elite level kickers is only a recent development in Australian Rugby. In the professional era, we were blessed with Burke, Mortlock, Flatley and others and there have been many more highly accomplished kickers at Club level that haven't been seen at Super Level, such as Maloney and Parkes.

The fact is that given the "safe" game plan and limited try scoring ability of the side for the last 18 months it is "safe" to say that a very high percentage goal kicker would be required, to say nothing of the execution of kicking from the hand. The fact that this key area has been almost totally neglected is a blight on key performance indicators for the management.
 
Scoey

Scoey

Tony Shaw (54)
If they really want, I can be the Wallabies kicking coach. Because I want them to do well I can also to them a discount I guess. I promise I won't coach via Skype either. I will get in my car, drive to training, look the kickers in the eye and then hand them a copy of that video above on a disc so it's theirs to keep and tell them to watch that. ;)

All for a fraction of what they pay that Skype Coach fella! That fraction will be 999/1000 but still..... :D
 
the plastic paddy

the plastic paddy

John Solomon (38)
Ignoto said:
At the pinnacle end of Australian rugby, cultural issues shouldn't be coming up. Poor scrummaging, poor kicking etc are coachable areas. In the early 2000's Jones didn't care for Props who could scrummage and only saw it as a reset mechanism. To this day, we're still paying for this short sightedness. It's exactly the same thing for kicking, we paid for it last night because we're too cheap to get a full time coach with our players. The ARU's hack of using Skype didn't work out, funny that?

The All Blacks have a huge emphasis on scoring tries, but they've had some quality kickers (especially carter). Someone in the last decade at the ARU should have realised this and actually brought someone in.
Click to expand...
The Saffas tend to have a few kickers knocking about as well.
 
RedsHappy

RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
mxyzptlk said:
Yeah, Sexton uses Dave Alred as well. He's a regular biomechanical Yoda -- works with golfers too.
Click to expand...

Can you indulge me in a (relevant) family story?

A few weeks back in the QLD rugby club pre-season, I was fortunate enough to get my 15 year old rugby playing son into a Dave Alred-conducted specialist kicking clinic right here in Brisbane. About 15 other boys of varying ages also joined.

My son has some natural kicking ability, though bless him he's far from a young Morne Steyn as yet ;).

After this clinic - which was as expected demanding and quite technical - he was hugely impressed by what he'd learnt and how he'd been instructed and described Alred as 'Dad, he's a genius coach'. After this clinic, his interest and motivation towards his kicking went way up.

Anyway, some weeks later, playing 10 for his U15 team, he started to be given most of the kicking duties. In his second match, he kicked two conversions from near on the sideline, and the resulting 4 points won his team the really tight match they played wherein the number of tries scored was equal. All parties rather pleased. He would never, ever have achieved this without that kicking clinic.
 
Cassius88

Cassius88

Sydney Middleton (9)
the plastic paddy said:
The Saffas tend to have a few kickers knocking about as well.
Click to expand...


Haha took the words out of my mouth.

This is definitely not another Wallaby failing that can be palmed off on NH vs SH rugby style. The Springboks have had consistently great kickers for years. I would say that NZ have, but they've had Carter for years, so I don't know if that shows that their grassroots coaching is working, or simply that Carter is a freak.
 
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