When did drop goals suddenly become so difficult?

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Sun 18 Mar 2012, 6:48 pm

Checking the stats from this 6 nations ...1 scored, 17 missed. Seems going for them is just a waste of a field position if the success rate is that low.

Bring back jannie de beer?

by niwatts Sun 18 Mar 2012, 7:28 pm

90% of those were Beauxis though

by **Biltong** Sun 18 Mar 2012, 8:18 pm

When did drop goals suddenly become so difficult?

Since they started missing them. Laugh

by maestegmafia Sun 18 Mar 2012, 8:25 pm

Poor old Beauxis did himself no favours.

Still can't understand why they won't pick Trinh-Duc???

by yappysnap Sun 18 Mar 2012, 8:27 pm

France seem to love crazy coaches. The players must be depressed!

by samuraidragon Sun 18 Mar 2012, 8:36 pm

Farrell missed a couple, Priestland always misses. T-D missed two potential game winners in successive weeks.

D-Gs are becoming a moe important weapon, as boshing over from within a 22 jam-packed with bodies is getting harder and harder. How many times in this 6N did attacking teams come away from protracted pressure with no points? More practice needed, lads.

by ChequeredJersey Sun 18 Mar 2012, 9:14 pm

samuraidragon wrote:Farrell missed a couple, Priestland always misses. T-D missed two potential game winners in successive weeks.

D-Gs are becoming a moe important weapon, as boshing over from within a 22 jam-packed with bodies is getting harder and harder. How many times in this 6N did attacking teams come away from protracted pressure with no points? More practice needed, lads.

Yeah but drop goals when you have a pen advantage (like Farrell's miss yesterday) are usually from positions that one would not usually take a shot from, because it doesn't matter if they miss. The ones that mattered seemed to be misses from Beauxis

by HERSH Sun 18 Mar 2012, 9:49 pm

I've said it before so I'll say it again, International players of today lack basic skills.

by maestegmafia Sun 18 Mar 2012, 10:05 pm

ChequeredJersey wrote:
samuraidragon wrote:Farrell missed a couple, Priestland always misses. T-D missed two potential game winners in successive weeks.

D-Gs are becoming a moe important weapon, as boshing over from within a 22 jam-packed with bodies is getting harder and harder. How many times in this 6N did attacking teams come away from protracted pressure with no points? More practice needed, lads.

Yeah but drop goals when you have a pen advantage (like Farrell's miss yesterday) are usually from positions that one would not usually take a shot from, because it doesn't matter if they miss. The ones that mattered seemed to be misses from Beauxis

Quite a few lads like Beauxis and Kearney went for some ambitiously long range efforts. The range must reduce your chances considerably.

Over the years it seems like some years plenty go over other years near to none.

by stlowe Sun 18 Mar 2012, 10:24 pm

Looking at a breakdown of the drop goal attempts...

France, 1 success, 6 misses
Italy, 2 successes, 4 misses
Ireland, 0 successes, 3 misses
Wales, 0 successes, 2 misses
England, 0 success, 2 misses
Scotland, no attempts

As someone else stated above, apart from France & Italy I don't think any of the teams were using it as a tactic or had practiced it much, just a speculative hit to nothing from way out when they knew a penalty was coming.

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Sun 18 Mar 2012, 10:41 pm

Sorry I missed the two from Italy when counting up.

by Mad for Chelsea Sun 18 Mar 2012, 11:11 pm

drop goals have always been difficult, it's just that over the last few years we've been spoilt by having both Wilkinson and O'Gara (probably in the top 3 of all time with Hugo Porta at DGs), who made it look easy.

by disneychilly Sun 18 Mar 2012, 11:24 pm

It's difficult when the two best exponents of the drop goal in your team both get injured in the second half of a World Cup quarter-final and the ref isn't blowing penalties...

by Shifty Mon 19 Mar 2012, 6:09 pm

Slow ball and many defenders probably causes problems.

Though Priestland is bloody useless at them, I have NEVER seen him score one! Can anyone remember Priestland being successful with an atempt? Headscratch

Mad for Chelsea wrote:drop goals have always been difficult, it's just that over the last few years we've been spoilt by having both Wilkinson and O'Gara (probably in the top 3 of all time with Hugo Porta at DGs), who made it look easy.

And Jiffy don't forget him! Hug

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Mon 19 Mar 2012, 7:07 pm

Jannie de Beer? Rob Andrew was hardly shabby with the drop either.

Theres been at least one aknowledged drop goal expert around the international game for all the time I can remember. Now it suddenly seems to me like noone can score them at all.
The success rate at the world cup was pretty shabby too

by Thomond Mon 19 Mar 2012, 9:02 pm

Ireland's ones in particular were pretty insane. Why was D'Arcy attmepting a drop goal FFS. Kearney had a magnificent attempt on Saturday. He attempted it from half way and hit the post. It looked like it had a good 5m to spare on it too. Such a shame it didn't go over.

Paul Warwick was superb at long range drop goals: 1:53 into this has 3 great strikes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-5GjQ8PX8g

by fa0019 Mon 19 Mar 2012, 9:23 pm

Interesting stat there... regardless of their apparent difficulty, I'm certain the next team who loses to a last min drop goal will be asking to have them reduced to 1 or 2 points because they're "too easy".

Amazing after all those misses and Jonny used to knock them over with ease.... with his other foot. Legend.

by samuraidragon Tue 20 Mar 2012, 1:29 am

Jonny Wilkinson is top of charts for international matches, but if you take the number of caps into account, players like Jiffy, Barry John, and Porta are equally prolific. Naas Botha is outstanding with 18 DGs in 28 games. RoG, by contrast, has only 15 from 118.

Both Stephen Jones and Hook have nailed important DGs for Wales - one by Wellies in the 2005 match in Paris was particularly important, also one by Hook to kill off England in 2007.

Don't know why it suddenly looks so hard.

by aucklandlaurie Tue 20 Mar 2012, 1:40 am

Stlowe tells us that Scotland did not attempt one drop goal.this is a bit of a turn around from the World cup four months ago when Scotland kicked more drop goals than any other team.

by samuraidragon Tue 20 Mar 2012, 1:49 am

When Scotland beat Austrialia 9-8 in 2009, Paterson nailed a DG and Giteau missed a straightforward one. When they beat S. Africa the next year, Parks knocked over a DG to take them more than a score clear.

Scotland's big results and DGs seem to go together.

by fa0019 Tue 20 Mar 2012, 9:04 am

there are 3 scenarios where drop goals are taken and to get a more accurate figure of their success I would only count 1 of those.

They are attempted firstly as a planned move... see ROG vs. Harlequins in the HC earlier in the season and JW in the RWC03 final

Next when a player is passed the ball, is isolated and has no support and therefore decides to have a random crack regardless of where he is and how close the opposition are to charging him down (often taken by the wrong player... i.e. D'Arcy last weekend).

And finally when a penalty has been given and the player attempts a snap 2 shots at the cherry drop goal knowing that if he misses he will get a penalty attempt.

The final 2 are often half hearted attempts and the players often see them as shots to nothing rather than actual attempts.

by dublin_dave Tue 20 Mar 2012, 12:12 pm

im amazed we didnt tack on 3 points in paris when we were bashing away at the french line with no success.

one of the few positives is we have two fly halves who can kick drop goals with Rog being the best in the world still aged 35.

Beauxis wants to drop everything. For a kicking fly half his kicking from hand is rubbish. As for Darcy on Saturday, jesus wept.

by PenfroPete Tue 20 Mar 2012, 12:26 pm

AlynDavies wrote: Though Priestland is bloody useless at them, I have NEVER seen him score one! Can anyone remember Priestland being successful with an atempt?

Rhys Priestland Scarlets Stats - Wales Stats in RED
Played - 77 (+17 as replacement) 12 (+3)
Tries - 15 1
Conv - 82 12
Drop Goals – 2 (both in the Magners League 2010-2011) 0
Penalties - 141 8
Yellow Card - 0 1
Red Card - 0 0
Total Points - 668 53

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Tue 20 Mar 2012, 1:34 pm

Cheers penfro,

If the two he got were in the Magners it backs up the claim that no-one has ever seen him get one

by PenfroPete Tue 20 Mar 2012, 1:35 pm

............................. Laugh

by Mad for Chelsea Tue 20 Mar 2012, 1:42 pm

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Cheers penfro,

If the two he got were in the Magners it backs up the claim that no-one has ever seen him get one

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