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Run it we must: Australia’s kicking needs the boot

18th March, 2013
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The Waratahs' Berrick Barnes kicks down field. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
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18th March, 2013
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If I were Wallabies Coach Robbie Deans, I’d be buying new ARU CEO Bill Pulver lunch every day until he stumped up the cash for a dedicated kicking and skills coach to work within Australian rugby.

And once my new kicking coach was settled into his new office, I’d tell him to get out, and get around the five Super teams to improve their kick effectiveness.

Watching some teams’ kicking at the moment, I don’t think he’d spend a lot of time behind his desk.

Roar colleague, David Lord, was uplifting in his column over the weekend, espousing that the Waratahs “only put the boot to the ball 10 times in 80 minutes” in their 27-26 loss to the Cheetahs in Sydney on Friday night.

On the surface, there’s probably a lot to like about that figure in isolation, perhaps even more so for ‘Tahs fans who’ve been kicked into exasperation in recent seasons. There’s certainly no argument from me that the Waratahs most certainly are trying to run the ball more under new coach Michael Cheika.

But there is much more to it than just the number of kicks. Kicking in rugby is not necessarily bad thing. Bad kicking in rugby is the real issue there.

And unfortunately, this is one of few areas that Australia has excelled in recent seasons.

And without wanting to sink the slipper into the Waratahs – honestly – there is possibly no better example. “Aimless kicking” has been just as dirty a term for ‘Tahs fans as has “winning ugly”.

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Berrick Barnes remains the go-to man as far as the ‘Tahs kicking. Restarts, clearances, ordinary grubbers; he delivered the vast majority of them for the 19 minutes he was on.

And there’s an obvious reason for this: he’s no cannon-boot, but Barnes is still the longest kick in the Tahs side.

While he was on, Barnes’ clearing kicks from in or around his own 22m line were generally always pushing toward the Cheetahs’ 22. Brendan McKibbin and particularly Bernard Foley couldn’t find that sort of distance after Barnes went off.

But distance is only one part of the issue. In truth, with the possible exception of Brumbies fullback, Jesse Mogg, there are no booming Chris Latham-esque punters in Australia currently.

The biggest issue for the Waratahs – just in terms of their kicking game – remains the effectiveness of those kicks, and perhaps this also a driver in why Cheika wants them to play more with ball in hand, aside from the obvious visual reasons.

How many times would you see them putting through grubber or chip kicks with no chasers, or with no-one really knowing the kick was coming?

How many times would you see clearing kicks going straight down the throat of the opposing covering players, which in turn allowed a return clearance under little or no pressure?

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But this is where we can bring the other Australian teams into the equation, though. All the problems that applied to the Waratahs over the weekend, also applied to the Reds, Force and Brumbies, too.

And the Rebels wouldn’t have been exempt, either, had they played.

Quade Cooper’s kicking for the Reds was just one of a number of disappointing factors in his display on Saturday night, and Will Genia’s wasn’t a whole lot better for the forty minutes he played.

Both were guilty of rushed grubbers and chip kicks, of clearing kicks straight to fullbacks, and of not finding touch when either it might’ve been handy, or was most certainly required.

Genia, happily, isn’t overdoing the box kick just yet, but it is still early days in his return from injury

The Force used multiple kickers with mixed success. Alby Mathewson used the box kick reasonably well, and big Patty Dellit several times was able to get good distance on the clearance despite some bad angles.

Sias Ebersohn doesn’t possess a long kick out of the hand, though, and like Cooper, he was also regularly guilty of finding defenders and the touchline well short of where might’ve been useful.

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The Brumbies, playing on a wet evening in Durban, did resort to their kicking game once the rain set in after half time, but they do have the aforementioned distance advantage that Mogg brings.

The Brumbies will still guilty of consistently finding the covering Sharks, but considering they already had the bonus point win secured by that stage, and that the Sharks showed no signs of coming back, the Brumbies were never punished.

Hence, in all cases above, the alternative to the ineffective kicking game is coming through. Either by design, or by on-field recognition, all the Australian teams showed a preference to run the ball a lot more over the weekend than we’ve grown used to.

In what was as clinical a first half from the Brumbies since maybe even the 2004 Final, the ACT side showed in the first half against the Sharks that ball runners coming from depth – backs or forwards – can make ground just as easily as a reliance on kicking can.

The Force, too, had good success both up the middle and around the fringes with their support runners.

And perhaps this is what Robbie Deans needs to act on when the inevitable rejection of his kicking coach request comes through.

If the Australian teams are now looking to run the ball more, then you would hope that the Wallabies might want to play this way too.

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Especially if, on form at least, there is much turnover of personnel in the backline as we might expect.

A running game is never going to eradicate the kicking game, but it might, and indeed should negate the reliance on kicking for the sake of kicking.

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