Tactical kicking the weapon of choice for the Landers and Chiefs

Mozart

Nobody has a  problem  with tactical kicking – but the problem  in SA  for a long time was that our kickers have been stupid in the extreme since they do not know the difference between a tactical kick and an aimless kick,  

A tactical kick aims through accuracy –

*   to kick balls away from potential  recipients  thus forcing them to run some distance to collect he balls and by the time they do get to balls, they are under pressure;

*    to ensure that recipients are under pressure when they have to get to collection of the ball through effective follow-up; and

*   when used as a relieving kick in the 22 of the team, kicks are effective and not allowing for quick throw-ins as a basis for counter-attacking.

There is no follow-up possible in the case of long distance kicks and once the recipient gets the kick and start a  counter-attack the kick became a possession handover mechanism.   The quality of kicks by players like Morne Steyn  and Fat Fransie has been over the air described as BS by NZ commentators  because of aimlessness and  inaccuracy..  90% of the kicking of our half- backs represent  possession handovers  and has nothing to  with tactical kicking.

Strategic kicking is foreign to SA and  there has nothing been done to develop  out of hand kicking skills of players and less to instil in the SA half-backs that kicking is a variation – not a given to be used the majority of the time.      

Be it as it may kicking should never be  an alternative to   passing of balls but as an enhancement of attacking to be used when appropriate.     

Mozart

There is no data because stats does not evaluate the quality of kicking,   In any event I never said that kicking  should not be used as a pressure relieving measure - neither should it be an alternative in attacking play, it obviously should be.

My gripe all long is that the kicking culture  should be replaced by a culture of ball sense and effective usage as kicking as a weapon - like the NZ teams use successfully.   For that it is required that the  SA half-backs and full backs should have special coaching,

Just one thing that should be eliminated in total is to kick relieving kicks down the center of the field and in fact not effectively be out allowing for a counter-attack.   Fact is I have also seen recently that the Morne disease of not finding touch with penalty kicks is still showing strong tendencies with both Pollard and Du Preez  making that mistake.   A player doing that should be required to do 10 hours penalty learning how to make line kicks and penalize half its salary for the day when  found guilty using that lunacy.