Ahhhh, that’s how you do it…

 

No.2 The cross-field kick

 

In the second of our regular coaching features, Harlequins’ former Waratahs’ coach Andy Friend tells us how to deploy the cross-field kick…

 

Bit of background
“The cross-field kick is a key way to beat defences,” says Andy Friend. “If any side doesn’t use it then you’re missing a trick because defences have become so much more committed and offer so little space."
“If you put the ball in behind them you’re asking questions of them and you start to open them up – you need to have it in your armoury just to test opponents.
“Carlos Spencer was always one of the best at it,” continues Friend. “In fact a lot of the Kiwis do it very well, but Carlos was the best, he had his own style of kicks too.
“It works well today because there’s a real trend to have large wingers – taller boys – although the cross-field kick is very team specific. You have to have large wingers and guys who can execute the kick.”

 

Execution
“The kick needs to be quite low,” says Friend. “You need to kick at about seven o’clock (see diagram) and give it a little bit of weight. One of the mistakes people make is giving it too much height so it hangs for too long. It needs to either drop behind the defence so that it sits up for the winger or to be placed in front of him to run on to.
“Ideally you would use it off a scrum on the right-hand side of the pitch to give you the most space possible. And, also it’s good to do it off a dummy-switch, a defence will read it if you do it straight off the ten and it’s good for the fly-half to have the ball in his hands for as long as possible.
“The skills involved from the winger and the kicker are practised a lot in training, we spend a lot of time at training kicking balls to our wingers.”

 

Five golden rules of the cross-field kick

1. Do a dummy-switch to provide the kicker with the angle and to engage defence.
2. Check ball placement and correct foot contact.
3. Ensure you have the correct flight of ball - too much height allows for opposition to get under the kick.
4. Always kick for space.

5. Make the winger start wide (on touchline) and attack the ball once he's read the flight.