Any firm believer in the theory that sport moves in cycles will be delighted, if that is the right word, to see the return of the kicking game in rugby. Thirty years ago there was only one way to move the leaden, greasy leather ball down a sodden bog of a pitch, and that was to hoof the hell out of it. The kicking game was a product of rudimentary playing conditions.
Nowadays the playing surfaces of the rugby professional superstar are immaculate. The ball is dry and its pimples are not the result of greasy skin but of high technology that says it is impossible to drop. But in this World Cup they have still been hoofing the hell out of it. It is not a strategic revolution. The last time a player crossed for a try in a World Cup final was way back in 1991 when prop Tony Daly trundled over from all of 0,75m. Since then there has been a final in South Africa made up of penalties and drop goals, and a third World Cup where the foot has been far more prominent than the hand.
For a short while in the early days of the professional game, everybody went try- crazy. The southern hemisphere needed an attractive Super 12 format to drag back audiences being lured away to rugby league. But as players and coaches had more time to practise their fancy manoeuvres and clever cut-out passes, so they also had time to work out how to stop opponents doing the same to them. Handling skills developed but, more alarmingly, so did chest measurements and appetites for doing serious damage.
Before the kick returned to fashion, tackling had entered a new age of frenzy. All the rules about taking a ball-carrier low were abandoned in favour of hitting him hard and high, and smashing the ball out of his grasp. Coaches like Phil Larder were shipped in from rugby league to fine-tune the new systems.
There was only one way to break down the brutality of the tackling defence. And that was to reinvent the punt. Andrew Mehrtens, a small fellow, kicks the ball a mile, drilling opposition lines backwards, forever backwards.
The grubber kick, the delicate little roll along the ground, has also proved effective. Every player from one to 15 now practises long kicks, high kicks, ones that go along the ground and ones that spin into the corner. Left-footed and right-footed.
And the real masters of the art, who used to rely on sweet natural timing and half-a-dozen swings of the boot before training on a Thursday night, now toil away hour after hour on a daily basis making sure that their kicking game will be perfect.
Defences in this current World Cup have been more massive than ever before. The ball has been kicked in order to avoid them more than ever before. This is the new age of the kicking game.
And that is even before we come to the question of accumulating points through the boot. The drop goal has been rediscovered as a means of gaining three points when a try is unlikely. “The easiest three points in the game” has long been the mantra of many a coach concerning the drop goal. Again, defences have dictated that it is back in fashion. Jannie de Beer in the last two games did not even look to take the ball on the run; he simply sat back and waited for the drop goal opportunity.
De Beer almost single-handedly defeated the English in the quarter-final and his injury time penalty forced the semi-final against Australia into extra time. But while 1995 dj vu struck most Springbok supporters, when you live by the drop goal, you die by the drop goal. In the most ironic of twists, the Springboks, who won their inaugural World Cup with a drop goal in the second half of extra time, were dismissed by a drop goal in the second half of extra time. Stephen Larkham only had to seal the victory won already by Matthew Burke’s eight penalties.
A day later Christophe Lamaison’s two drops in three minutes, followed by a penalty, sparked the French revival that saw New Zealand’s shocking exit, in the most startling upset of World Cup history, even though Jonah Lomu scored two tries.
Defences are mostly legal, but teams will give away penalties rather than surrender a try. Which brings us to the penalty-kicker. With a dry ball, a kicking tee, or a pile of sand and in wrap-around stadiums where the wind does not blow, the kicker, fortified by countless hours on the training ground, is the master of the modern game.
The only reassuring aspect for the purist is that the law of sporting cycles says the kicker will soon have to become a runner and passer. The law of nature says so and so do the people who run the television companies that feed the game.