Question about rugby ball, and about kicking.?

Question

...yes at practice I felt happier kicking there balls, and on my own I have a nfl ball which also feels lighter.

Lastly, despite all this strange event I have dealt with today, what other advice can you guys and girls give me , on the kicking front. You know tips for strengthening my leg and getting my aim in and all that...

Very much appreciated, thank you very very much for reading this long question of mine.

Answer 1

Yes, there is a variety of balls that all act differently when you kick them (slightly different shapes, weights, materials used).  They need to be pumped to the right pressure as well which is not much help if you haven't got a pump that registers psi.  You shouldn't be kicking the ball with your toe at all.  If you kicking from a tee then on the approach to the ball your standing foot should be planted just beside or a little in front of the ball and you shoud be kicking the ball with the front part of your laces really and then make sure to follow through with your kick.  Balls always have sweet spots where there is an optimum place to kick and that will probably be a third of the way up the ball from the floor.  Kicking from hand you need to master the spiral or end over end kick.  With the spiral you kick the ball mostly with the outside of your boot and the way you position the ball in your hands is important as if you don't have the ball in the right position to begin with it won't spin when you kick it.  I imagine you'll be able to find some kind of diagram online explaining this.  Kicking the ball end over end, you strike the ball in a different place, at the point of the ball.  I think its easier to get more power into the ball this way and you don't have to be so precise in where you connect with the ball

Answer 2

I gather from your vocabulary that you're based in the US (sneakers, freaking...). I don't know much about gridiron but from what I've seen, goal kicking is very different in NFL where the ball, as you state, is much lighter (and smaller) than a rugby match ball. Kickers kicking a field goal seem to toe-punt the football or at least 'get under it' a lot more than is required in order to successfully stroke a rugby ball between the uprights.

Take your lessons from top class rugby and forget what you've seen NFL kickers doing, they're two different sciences in my opinion and I don't think American Football kicking styles are going to help you in union.

You talk about strengthening your leg. There's nothing wrong with pumping some iron to get some extra power in your thigh but I recall that when I was fifteen there were a number of players around the circuit I played on at the time who could comfortably strike a ball between the posts from the half-way mark - many of those guys were built more like ballerinas than rugby players at that age. Successful kicking in rugby union has virtually nothing to do with strength, get that out of your head and you'll have significantly progressed in terms of understanding how it's done. You're asking the right questions but unfortunately, until you hit the sweet spot, combining balance, power and above all timing, you'll probably remain in the dark as to what it really is to place kick a rugby ball.

Learning to punt is much easier than learning to kick because you'll get results much faster and you'll learn a few things about the dynamics of a kick that just don't make sense if you think about them 'logically'.

Chances are you're forcing your kicks, trying to hoof the thing from thirty yards out. Be careful, if you're still toe poking the ball then all it takes is for a bit of grass to skid beneath you're standing foot and you could end up with a longitudinal ankle sprain that puts you out of action.

My tips on exercises you can try to improve your kicking :

Practice place kicking from about fifteen to twenty metres out from the post with the ball in line with the left hand post (if you're right footed). This is the easiest kick on a rugby field - easier than kicking bang in the middle of the posts, actually; this is due to the trajectory of a rugby ball when kicked correctly from ground. Perfect this kick and when you think you've got it right, do it another 200 times (ten a day for a month).

When it comes to learning to kick goals from the side of the pitch (converting a try scored by a wing in the corner for example), start by placing the ball abnormally close to the try line (five-ten metres). This will create a seemingly impossible angle but you'll soon learn how to control the flight of the ball by keeping your follow-thru controlled and always in line with your intended destination for the ball.

Explaining this is a bit like trying to explain how to hit a golf ball - it's easy when you know how and frustrating when you don't (when I say it's easy, I don't actually mean accurately kicking goals is easy; it's not, especially when the pressure is on - but it's really not hard to place kick a ball 45 metres in the general direction of the posts and it doesn't require some genetic formula you either have or don't have... it's a skill that is perfectly easily acquired through practice).

I've literally thrown down a few ideas here in no particular order and I doubt this 'advice' will be of much use to you but I'll leave you with two theoretical points.

Study some goal kicking images on youtube.com and try to imitate the body position of the kicker. This is a freak kick : http://youtube.com/watch?v=g_NaCrcl4do but the video serves well to show you how to approach a rugby ball when kicking as it's a large fairly close up image. Freeze it, copy it, slow it down. The most important part of approach is that last step which is a huge step. The foot that is planted next to the ball must be static at the time of making contact with the striking boot and the large step before contact allows the striking boot to 'hang' behind the body.

Imagine the process as a tight coil unraveling and springing into contact using the laces of your boot to strike the ball. The whole body needs to be smoothly geared towards snapping all that power into the point of contact - remember, the approach effort is minimal; kicking isn't particularly tiring, it's mechanics. Javelin and discus throwers understand what this is all about, it's the same concept, like a slingshot. By offering resistance against the forward motion of the run up where only the striking leg continues its motion, carrying all that momentum into the ball.

Happy kicking, keep practicing and you WILL get it.

Answer 3

You may have kicked a weighted "training ball"