Source :- THE AGE NEWS
As a half, there’s a couple of ways you can win a game for your team: running and taking on the line, passing for your ball runners to do the same, and organising the attack.
The hardest way to win a game, though, is through your kicking.
Adam Reynolds is now as good as anyone I have ever seen at winning a game with his boot.
Warren Ryan used to say to me, “A good kick can rescue a set of six, but a bad one can destroy a great set as well”. The momentum shift is even greater now that if you get it wrong, you can be punished with a seven-tackle set.
When I was young, I watched hours and hours of Ricky Stuart kicking. “Sticky” was just an absolute genius – the way he shaped a kick, how he held the ball, how he could find space and disguise what he was doing.
Ricky Stuart was a master with the boot.Credit: Fairfax Media
I think Reynolds is now taking all of that even further. Last Thursday night against the Bulldogs was a masterclass from the Broncos No.7 – kicking 16 times for 511 metres, with two tries from kicks, two forced dropouts and a 40-20.
Reynolds has perfected not only the kicks that suit him, but those that best suit the players he has around him.
His attacking kicks are just superb, and he’s also added the ability to nail kicks from ad-lib footy, which relies on a lot of instinct, vision and endless hours of practice.
The try he put on a platter for Deine Mariner from a Payne Haas offload was brilliant.
And then you add Reynolds’ grubber for the post when the fullback is in the line and the defence is rushing him.
Not to mention his goalkicking – 1087 goals at better than 82 per cent. He’s right up there with the best boot I’ve ever seen.
To break down an NRL kicking game in modern rugby league a bit further, a playmaker has three areas to work with: kicking out of your own 40m when you’re coming out of trouble; then you’ve got the 20m zone between your 40m line and the opposition’s; and, of course, your attacking zone between the 20m and the tryline.
The long game
From inside your own 40, you typically have two kicks: across your body and aiming towards the right corner for a right footer, or hooking back across your body to the left.
Hooking back towards the left was my personal favourite, because you naturally get a long, smooth backswing on the ball, and when it bounces, it’s naturally heading towards the sideline.
Kicking for the ‘cage’
Next up, once you’re outside your own 40, but not pressing the opposition try line, what you’ll see these days is what players and coaches call a “cage kick″.
As a playmaker, you’re aiming to pin the winger or fullback under the high ball inside a 10m x 10m cage between the try line, the 10m line and the sideline.
You want to be raining those Matt Burton floaters or a torpedo down here. I don’t know why a guy like Burton doesn’t launch them more often.
Attack your opposite No.7
And then the really fun stuff – attacking the line.
You’ve got your far-post grubber kicks and the play I really like that’s come into vogue – a chipped bomb. With this, you’re trying to land the ball on top of your opposition halfback for an athletic back-rower to leap over him – like you see with Nathan Cleary and Liam Martin, the Storm kicking for Eli Katoa or North Queensland’s Jeremiah Nanai when he’s used as an aerial target.
It takes real skill because you’re trying to isolate the half, which means it has to be weighted perfectly so his teammates don’t have time to help him.
There’s also the cross-field kick for your winger and centre, but the other kick now is again targeting the opposition halves once you’ve gone to the line and brought the defence up to you.
This is Sam Walker’s favourite play. With the fullback defending in the line, you kick in behind the five-eighth or halfback. And because you’ve gone to the line yourself, the defending winger and centre have pushed up, while your own outside backs are racing through.
The key to this kick is grubbering above knee height, so the defenders can’t trap it with their feet and legs. Again Walker does this as well as anyone.
But Reynolds has every kick in the book.
Bunker blues – and how to fix it
Obviously the use of the bunker has gone too far this season, to the point it has been deciding who wins games instead of the players.
The NRL has acknowledged this and decided to stop the bunker’s overreach – they won’t be going back in play looking for marginal high tackles. That will only happen if it’s a severe foul deserving of a send-off.
Rugby league’s greatest strength is how the game flows, and these days we need fatigue in the contest to break it open. Otherwise the NRL’s best players and defences are just too good; they don’t miss tackles or make poor decisions if they’re fresh and getting a breather while the bunker intervenes.
Credit to NRL boss Andrew Abdo for fronting up on Fox Sports and 100% Footy on Monday night to admit head office had got this wrong.
At the end of the season, I think we need to look at the bunker’s interpretations on tries as well.
Firstly, if two players go up for a high ball, or if a player is grounding a grubber or a loose ball, look at it in real time, not super slow-motion. Look at it twice – no more – and if it looks like a try, award it. Who cares if there’s a pinky finger brushed at some point?
There will be errors made, but you can’t have it both ways. I’d prefer the game being able to move along, so work it out with the broadcasters where they don’t show endless replays trying to find a tiny touch or a mistake.
I don’t mind checking whether a foot has gone into touch or if a putdown is in the in-goal, but let’s speed it up.
Time to rethink the bunker’s use.Credit: Cole Bennetts
The other one for me, and you can’t legislate this, but please add some common sense to how we use the bunker.
When Souths were down by six points against the Cowboys in Perth a few weeks ago, Keaon Koloamatangi burrowed over from dummy half.
The referee was on top of the play and every man and his dog could see Keaon didn’t get the ball down. But we went upstairs just in case, and with five minutes in the game to go, we spent two minutes and 20 seconds reviewing the play for no reason while North Queensland’s defence had a rest.
Rugby union’s biggest issue is that’s over-officiated; the referees nitpick and the game is just a stop-start affair. We can’t let rugby league go that way.
Especially with Magic Round where we’ve got some real upsets on the cards. The Titans for me are a great chance of toppling the Bulldogs, I rate Newcastle’s chances against the Rabbitohs without Latrell Mitchell and I think Parramatta can knock off the Sharks.
If we can see and hear less from the bunker as well, that would be just perfect.
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