Tactical Kicking Article by Will Greenwood

By Will Greenwood for The Telegraph

But while a kick has the power to liberate, sadly for too many teams in this year’s Premiership, it is also starting to shackle. And bizarrely it is not the fault of the player taking the punt.
The problem all comes down to those trying to catch the ball; the chasers, or in this case the attacking threat.
My biggest bugbear so far this season has been the crossfield kick, or kick-pass as it is now known, and the effect it has had on wingers and their alignment.
It was devastating when it was first introduced to the England side at the start of the millennium by Dave Alred, a master tactician and kicking specialist.
Alred spent a lot of time with Australian rules football teams, trying to understanding the best way of attacking the blind spot of a defending player, normally a wing or full-back.

He worked out that the most effective way of doing this was with a crossfield kick. The execution is simpler than it reads.
Waiting for the crossfield kick to arrive, the defender usually stood relatively still, looking in the direction of the ball, turning their back to the touchline.
To exploit this, the open-side attacking winger would run off the pitch, usually to about where the touch judge was standing.
This would allow him to re-enter the field of play on a 45-degree angle, and attack the defender’s back and blind spot.
He would run on to the field, leap into the air, ideally put one knee into the back of his opponent and with it go gloriously over the try line.
This was lethal when it was first employed and Ben Cohen was the master of it, scoring a hatful of tries employing the “forward pass with the boot”.
Today everyone uses it, and players are almost always looking for it, either in defence or attack. Wings stand in the wide channels giving out hand signals like a race-track bookie going Gangnam.
If you wonder why they do not just shout a call it is because you cannot hear each other in club games, let alone international matches. England used to use a hand on the head as their signal that the winger wanted a kick-pass.
Today, it is much more varied, and the skills have come on significantly. Kickers can now hit receivers from 50 yards away, and the low trajectory they use makes it almost impossible for defences to retreat or cover across to negate the threat.
However, it is now so prevalent that it has created a problem that is hurting other types of attacking play. Wings, but not solely wings, are waiting for the cross-field kick and as a result are either getting too flat or spending large chunks of the game in front of their own back line, apart than the fly half.
It seems that whenever I watch a game and there is space and time to move the ball down the back line, I see the wing standing out wide in front of everyone except the fly-half.
What makes it worse is that when the ball actually starts to move down the line the wing does very little to try to get back, hoping the attackers will run past.
More often than not this does not happen because the defence rushes up, which is easier now the wing is no longer a threat, hits the penultimate man and kills the attacking chance and ball all at once. Chance after chance is being wasted.
The crossfield kick is a weapon that needs to be deployed occasionally. For the rest of the match, wings need to be able to see the number on the back of the shirt of the player inside them. If they cannot, they are too flat and of no use to the attacking side. It really is that simple.
Alignment is a real problem for English club sides at the moment, and not just because of waiting for kicks that do not come.
London Irish have been too poor far too often and Marlon Yarde, a very talented player, spends too much time in front of the ball.
In previous weeks, Saracens were awful at it against Sale and it cost them a seven-pointer. When width came for Sarries to exploit, the ball was passed behind their last man and Sale’s Will Addison scooped it up and ran the length of the field. Sale were invited back into a game in which they had no right to be competitive. Self-induced, unforced error caused by poor alignment.
Leicester did something similar against Worcester, when poor alignment in the wide channel saw a forced pass that gave David Lemi the chance to go the length of the pitch. In a tight moment at half-time last week at Worcester, the Worcester wide men were as flat as a pancake and Lemi, an absolute flier, had no chance whatsoever of receiving the ball – chance gone.
Northampton were terrible against Exeter. Their pack crushed their opponents and yet every time they pushed the ball into the wide channel they passed it into touch or got turned over with a fumbled ball.
I understand why it must be so enticing for a winger to try to take the space, to cross the gain line quickly, but it is making it easier for opponents to defend.
In the attacking zone the deeper a back line can stand the better. It is a bit of an odd concept to grasp – the further away you start from the try line the more chance you have to score. Players need to give themselves space and time to run, to pick up speed, to adjust angles and see gaps. Get flat and you have nothing other than hospital tackles coming your way.
I keep hearing how fast the Premiership’s three-quarters are and yet I hardly have a chance to see them in full flight. Wingers and wide men need to come from deep, make sure their inside men can put the ball in front of them and then hit it in full stride. If they hang about out wide hoping for a cross-field kick, or creep ever closer to opponents’ try lines before the ball is anywhere near them they will flatten their back line and steam-roller attacking options. And a wing who cannot score is no use to anyone.
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Seems like a sensible piece from a sensible chap. England could well do with the tactical nous of someone like Greenwood in the midfield. A big lug like Tuilagi is very useful but only in partnership with someone who reads the game very well.

Another problem is littering the backline with forwards. Sometimes quick passing is needed and for the players to go the line and draw their man creating space outside. Often a forward gets in the way and slows the play down and the defensive line have time to shut down the gaps.

We may aswell all get used to a league / union hybrid....one code...its on its way

very good article, all of those points were on display last night in thte Sale v Tigers game too. Fords first option on attack was always the cross kick while Sale kept on putting loose forwards in the backline. At one point they had a three on one overlap a few metres out and all the player had to do was pass to the wing to score, unfortunately it was Vernon (a flanker) and he just trundled in to contact and killed the move.

Coaching in club rugby needs to get a lot smarter to catch up with the pace and power of the players in the teams.