Young Tiger Ford impresses Dave Alred

ESPN Staff July 29, 2012


Former England coach Dave Alred says young Leicester fly-half George Ford has one of the best attitudes he has ever come across and insists there is no limit to his potential.

Alred - who played a key role in realising the potential of the likes of Jonny Wilkinson, Jonathan Sexton, Rob Andrews and Neil Jenkins - has been working with Ford over the last two years, developing his kicking and mental game.

After much anticipation, Ford, 19, enjoyed a breakthrough season last year as he starred in Leicester's successful Anglo-Welsh Cup campaign and started the Aviva Premiership final, which the Tigers lost to Harlequins. Such was his end-of-season form some pundits suggested he may force his way on to England's tour of South Africa.

However, Ford stayed with the Tigers over the summer to work on his condition, skipping the Junior World Championships, in preparation for a central role in Leicester's Aviva Premiership campaign this season. Ford's kicking at goal was one of the few areas of weakness in his game last season but Alred insists he has the right attitude to fulfil his potential.

"I have really enjoyed working with George so far," Alred told the Rugby Paper. "He has got solid fundamentals and more importantly he has got one of the best attitudes I have come across. In my experience, attitude is the gatekeeper to everything else in your career.

"I am not surprised at all by how far he progressed last season. I was pleased but not surprised. How good he can become is all conjecture. The work I do with him is not about setting outcome goals related to playing in particular teams or kicking percentage.

"What we do a lot of is process based targets, both physical and mental, that he is learning and then executing. But in terms of his talent and potential, you cannot set a limit on how good he can become."

Really looking forward to watching George Ford this coming season & the benefits of his conditioning pre season.
Tigers were hoping for George to put on a stone and a half which seems a big percentage increase in a short space of time to me.

Wasn't Alred the guy who managed to ruin Wilkinson and Flood last season?
Not sure if i'd want him near Ford after the WC fiasco as well. Didn't it come to light that he'd spent most (read all) of the tournament playing golf?

I've heard Alred is a real pain in terms of his coaching technique. He ruins a players form (mainly kicking) in the short term for long term benefits. This is all well and good long term but it makes life difficult in the short term and normally sees the player take a lot of flack (see Hodgson when he broke into the England team and Flood the other year when his kicking percentage went from 75% to 60%).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/8908818/Englands-Rugby-World-Cup-shambles-laid-bare-as-leaked-report-blames-greedy-players-and-weak-leaders.html

I thought this leak was hilarious. Embarrassing of course but still..

What the England players had to say about Alred:

Dave Alred
“We had kicking problems and yet almost every morning who do you see swanning around in a polo shirt about to play another round of golf but Alred. It’s not the image you should be giving off that this is like a holiday to you.”
“‘Ballgate’ was the worst incident in my mind because it was cheating.”

I sort of feel Sam, that at nineteen, long-term gains should be well within the the reasonable parameters of long-term risk-taking. Whether Aldred is the right man or not is debatable (as with any coach). I have many concerns about 36. Can he be coached and tutored properly to get his boot-head right to fulfil his England potential?

Yeah it doesn't look good yet he still keeps his job, then again if you are friends with Rob Andrew...

In a way I'm suprised Alred has that much access to Ford as Cockers has previously slated Alred in the media after he started messing around with Flood's technique and made a mess of our end of season run in.

Hopefully Ford will have spent more time with Paul Burke (kicking and A Team Coach) and the fitness guys this off season. He had quite a way to bulk up and that will have not been easy to do in a way to maintain his speed so he will have had to been working very hard. It's not as simple as just lifting big weights.

Portnoy, long term gains sounds alright when you're 19 but when you are the second choice 10 at your club and aiming to become the first choice 10 and play for England that's not necessarily the time to mess around too much with your technique. Ford will want to make an impact this season as he's only on a 1 year deal with the possibility of a big Tigers pay rise next season should he do well this year.

As for Twelvetrees well that isn't Tigers problem anymore. A massive boot (60m easily) but reliable in the big games? I dunno. To be honest I think the kicking think should be a long range chancer only, let the 10 worry about the place kicking and get Billy working on what he should be doing, which is doing his thing in attack and organising the defence.

It might be that Alred isn't the main coach for the kicking but is overseeing Ford. Setting the targets but not being the one to get him there. If Ford was in the EPS Tigers would HAVE to reliquish some of the training responsibilities over to England. But Ford is not (he's in the Saxons isn't he?).

I seem to remember the thing with Flood was he was a good kicker before Alred but he had to 'deconstruct' the way Flood kicked to build it back up again in the 'right' way. Whether that's the right thing to do or not is a coaching issue. It seems wrong to me as it comes across that the coach came up with a succesful method for one player and forces every other to adopt it even if it's not right for them.

God's knows what'll happen if Homer ever gets in the EPS. He taught himself how to kick didn't he? But he's pretty damn good at it.

Yea Homer is pretty much self taught.

I think you're right about the deconstructing bit, even more bizzarre is he tried it with Wilkinson as well, seemed crazy as he was what 29 at that point?

formerly known as Sam wrote:

As for Twelvetrees well that isn't Tigers problem anymore. A massive boot (60m easily) but reliable in the big games? I dunno. To be honest I think the kicking think should be a long range chancer only, let the 10 worry about the place kicking and get Billy working on what he should be doing, which is doing his thing in attack and organising the defence.

A guaranteed game every week will help him build confidence here

More seriously, obviously Jon Callard does the rounds doing coaching, but Nigel Davies is bringing in Neil Jenkins to do some kicking coaching too, so hopefully we will see 36 becoming a more reliable kicking option.

To be fair HKC, in the normal games Twelvetrees is a pretty reliable kicker, it's only in the high pressure situations he tends to miss comfortable kicks. He is young and he needs to be kicking every week in order to be at his best. I don't think that will be the case at Glaws, really Glaws should be looking to him to be a Frans Steyn style long range option for when Burns is out of range.

formerly known as Sam wrote:To be fair HKC, in the normal games Twelvetrees is a pretty reliable kicker, it's only in the high pressure situations he tends to miss comfortable kicks. He is young and he needs to be kicking every week in order to be at his best. I don't think that will be the case at Glaws, really Glaws should be looking to him to be a Frans Steyn style long range option for when Burns is out of range.

Falling in the high pressure games - well he'll fit right in

As it sounds like Olly Morgan is going to be out for a long time, I wouldn't be surprised to see Rob Cook starting at 15 and taking the kicks with his rather unusual stance!

Ah yes, the famous 'squeeze' stance.

It would be best for Twelvetrees to get on with playing as a centre as opposed to as a 10, it will be good for him.

I'm looking forward to seeing how he goes if he does first dibs at the 12 shirt.

Of course after all that's been said by us about Leicester and him about not playing there it'll be a egg on face moment if he still crashes and burns.

I don't think he'll crash and burn Yappy, just expect the occasional defensive mistake in terms of his positioning. Your attack will be amazing if you get half decent ball.

Has Ford put any weight on as planned? Were figures of 1 and a half stone excessive?

No idea, Tigers won't play at home until the end of August (against Nottingham) so I won't get to see unless I go to that game or speak to someone who goes to either Jersey or Belfast (I imagine he'll get game time). The local wrag might run an article but then again there hasn't been one yet.

I never really thought that defence was an issue for 36 Sam, always more him throwing silly passes or trying the hail mary play at the wrong time

Well it's not his tackling (he's a big bloke in that regard) it's more to do with his inability to organise a defence or lead the line. It's his communication in defence more than anything. He's not a particularly rash player ball in hand, his attacking game has never been the issue it's been his ability to take on the responsibility of organising and leading the midfield at AP level. Something which Allen does brilliantly.