"Was that the best kick ever, factoring the conditions and consequences?"
For me, I would personally say that Morne Steyn kick in the first Lions series he played in ..... a total newbie, and a kick to win the whole series... but this Pollard kick, to get us to a final, in those horrible conditions.... was damn fine, and a damn close 2nd for me.
Agreed that was impressive by Morne. The third great kick I recall was the Jannie de Beer 40 yarder to get us into extra time in the Aussie semi in 99.
I was at the match and the rain was coming in sideways with heavy wind gusts.
Sadly I was also right behind Larkham when he launched his drop…..it never looked like missing. Perhaps the most stunning kick ever, given it was his first drop goal as I recall.
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These were all desperately close games and we won two out of three, the ones we had to win. Interestingly our stats were far better against Ireland. Possession was about 50/50 vs 40/60 in the games we won. And we actually outgained Ireland 383 metres to 218 metres…..whereas we were a 100 metres down against England and even more against France.
So what if any conclusions can be made….maybe that Ireland had a better sense of what they needed to do, to win. That was perhaps best illustrated by Steward’s foolish up and under landing on the halfway, when two points up and minutes to play…..the wrong choice, a deep rolling kick was the match winning option.
What our opponents haven’t grasped is with the kind of forward dominance we have in the last 10 minutes, a knock on is equal to a penalty. And with Pollard around a penalty is worth 3 points. Was that the best kick ever, factoring the conditions and consequences?