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Kicking - The Drop / Ball Placement

Dropping the ball properly is considered the main priority for many kickers, if they get the drop right then the other techniques fall into place. Dave Walder from the Newcastle Falcons explains some of the skills

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Pick one, maybe two skills to work on knowing that the end of the session you covered both those off. You'll find some guys to all about that drop of the get that right everything falls into place and the session goes well and you can cover more great. If not, make sure you nail the bits you're trying to trying to work on and then obviously there's a time in the week where you need to do the full picture as much as possible break it all down short and sharp and enjoy your practice. I've got ten things down here. Okay and realistically the chance of hitting all 10 10 out of 10 to get you a total score of a hundred are pretty limited, right? You might hit one kick every two three weeks where you just know that it's flushed and you're really happy with it. So in terms of the actual kick yourself, okay, these are the areas we work on tonight. Okay terms of your drop. Okay, I'm assuming everyone here is right-footed. If your left foot it's just flip it around. Okay. So a lot of people tend to drop the ball in front the crotch. Okay straight away because your hip is a ball and socket joint you're asking for trouble. You can have to come and pick the ball up and you'd be coming across the ball, okay? You want to drop the ball in line with your kicking leg? Okay, try you'll see people start our that when they go to kick the actually move the hands out there and they're actually dropping the ball in line with their right right leg. Okay. So as I say outside, I think we've got a couple of left Footers. So be interesting for guys are left foot and girls at left-footed to pick up generally in line with your kicking foot. Next is the ball position. Okay, The Sweet Spot of the ball. Okay, if I drew an arrow going in about a third of the way up there coming up a third of the top of the ball that middle third there. That's The Sweet Spot of the ball bottom of the sweet spot and exit the top of the sweet spot so that middle third of the ball whether whether it be a drop Punt and you're trying to push that bit forward or whether it's a goal kick where you picking the ball up of your tea and putting your foot in the bottom third coming out 2/3 of out the other side. So in case you're trying to send your foot through that way it's kicking a goal trying to get through that you punch the boy trying to go for that. Everything's about getting into that sweet spot that third of the ball that we're going to talk about the drop ball position the ball going to be leaning slightly forward and our aim is to smash that But entry point of that sweet spot push through it and you'll get a good backspin. Okay, you're pushing the ball forward when he started off. He was leaning the ball too far forward. So he was actually hitting under on the born the balls rolling forward. Okay, he lifts the most of the ball up and push that bottom third through get the backspin. Okay game for testing these out is you can go to the dead-ball area. Okay in your pairs competition who can kick it under the bar but their partner catch it first away from them. All right what your find that does K is guys have to punch the ball low have to keep that foot hard and they have to get the weight feel of the ball. Okay. Okay to Fat breast absolutely. Nothing that I say. They're really flushed the really good sound on it James. You got soft foot. Okay soft foot hard foot K really punching the ball. Now Brett's got a bit of pressure on him. It's going Brett. Yeah, good Okay. The reason is balls not fun perfectly on their end. It's because he's now starting to change the angle of his drop without realizing it by accident. His balls are dropping bang straight when he drops it dead straight. Okay, the ball ends around when the snow starts to fall away from the get what we call a helicopter spin not necessarily a bad thing. Okay, but it's just something you got to be careful obviously start to kick over more distance you go through stages where you think you've got it now and you can't miss and then within within a week you wonder how you could hit a barn door again and the key is trust your Technique go back stripping Back to Basics when you're struggling, you know, go right back to the very Basics, you know, getting your way through the ball which part of the foot hitting on and then eventually it comes back to you and trust you.