Kicking to Leeds

[cpwigan]

Why not kick it into touch. Might be old fashioned but it slows the game down and allows the defence to set on your own terms. Teams incl ours seem afraid to kick to the Leeds back 3 and seem to have stopped thinking.

[ian.birchall]

Why not kick it into touch. Might be old fashioned but it slows the game down and allows the defence to set on your own terms. Teams incl ours seem afraid to kick to the Leeds back 3 and seem to have stopped thinking.

You are arguing against yourself there CP, we can not be accused of not kicking into touch and at the same time being afraid to kick to their back 3 which by the way we did for most of the evening unsuccessfully!

[cpwigan]

Totally different Ian. Modern thinking is to keep the ball in play hence you end up kicking ideally to gaps between the back 3 but more often at the back 3. I am saying the opposite; kick to touch, it is a far easier kick, hell even Andy Greg in his old style boots could kick a grubber to touch.

[Panchitta Marra]

Why not kick it into touch. Might be old fashioned but it slows the game down and allows the defence to set on your own terms. Teams incl ours seem afraid to kick to the Leeds back 3 and seem to have stopped thinking.

How often do teams kick for touch in the NRL CP.
they even kick much less on 6th tackle now opting to run the ball instead.
Whats your thoughts on this tactic now adopted by NFL teams.

[cpwigan]

Nobody kicks for touch bar 20-20s PM in any competition but IMO it is remains a viable tactic particularly against a very good back 3. You tend to find NRL teams achieve more partity field position wise.

[Mike]

I thought we were going for a lot of 40-20s today TBH.

[cpwigan]

If we had Mike we should have been reaching touch more often than not albeit most would have been short.

To me RL logic; any sport, when you are under the pump and your players have used a lot of energy then you slow the game down to then conserve energy.

I hate the notion of one game plan fits all.

[Panchitta Marra]

Nobody kicks for touch bar 20-20s PM in any competition but IMO it is remains a viable tactic particularly against a very good back 3. You tend to find NRL teams achieve more partity field position wise.

If you kick for touch, ball reaching touch but not achieving a 40/20 the other team can have a good advantage with the feed in the scrum and players tied up in the scrum therefore creating more space to run into.
Is this a sufficient reason why Aussie teams seldom opt to kick for touch.

[cpwigan]

Nobody kicks for touch bar 20-20s PM in any competition but IMO it is remains a viable tactic particularly against a very good back 3. You tend to find NRL teams achieve more partity field position wise.

If you kick for touch, ball reaching touch but not achieving a 40/20 the other team can have a good advantage with the feed in the scrum and players tied up in the scrum therefore creating more space to run into.
Is this a sufficient reason why Aussie teams seldom opt to kick for touch.

Not really PM if you get a scrum close to your touch line then teams will rarely try to put an expansive move on. Invariably, it will end up forward v forward stood in the stand-off positions.

Kicking to touch ordinarily is seen as a poor tactic because it you are fitter and on top of your opponents then you want the ball kept in place rather than slow the game down.

You never get NRL teams that are so poor defending a kick / chase that you have to resort to such tactics albeit NSW v Queensland might be better doing so. In the NRL what you normally see is teams trying to kick to the least favoured side for the Inglis hand off or the Slater step to make them easier to tackle.

The biggest advantage Leeds have at the moment is the superiority of their back 3 kick returns. You either make sufficient yardage in your sets to put Leeds on the back foot territorially OR if you want to sacrifice field position in your sets for scoring / breaking as Wigan do then you need to kick for touch IMO. Barring that, grubber kicks and concentrating on making effective first up tackles.

Wigan playing like Wigan do cannot dominate Leeds unless they make lots of unforced errors with ball in hand.

[The booze hound]

If the opposition are consistently returning kicks 20/30 yards and getting a quick play the ball on the back of that then a good kick to touch makes perfect sense to me. Horses for courses. If on the fifth tackle Leeds are scrambling defensively then yes, keep the kick in play, but they seemed set and prepared most times to receive our last tackle plays and return them with interest making their 2,3 plays easy yards too.