OJO SCORE COULD BE TRY OF THE SEASON

MY highlight from a stunning opening weekend of Premiership Rugby was Topsy Ojo’s brilliantly executed try for London Irish against Harlequins. Turnover ball just inside Irish’s 22, an inch-perfect, low, driven kick from James Marshall to Ojo on the left wing, a gather and sprint, an inside ball to the supporting Fergus Mulchrone, then a perfectly timed inside pass back to Ojo. We might already have seen the try of the season! These cross-field kicks are becoming a massive new Keeping your wings out wide on both sides helps spread the defence but when the defence narrows, pull the trigger. Naturally it requires great vision, skill and decision-making from your kicker and, above all, great communication from the whole team. It’s the move of a confident team and it was fantastic to see Irish execute it so slickly on the big stage. Huge credit to director of rugby Nick Kennedy and his all-English coaching staff of Paul Hodgson, George Skivington and Declan Danaher for producing a team with that poise. Kennedy has already done a fine job in steadying the ship at London Irish in the Championship and now has his opportunity in the Aviva Premiership. It’s early days and there are huge challenges ahead, but it’s great to see him really earning his stripes as a coach and hopefully following the blueprint laid down by Gregor Townsend in Scotland.

Dive master: Topsy Ojo puts the

WORLD CUP-WINNING COACH attacking weapon and are a big part of Beauden Barrett’s armoury in New Zealand. In effect, they give you the ability to complete a 50-yard forward pass, which is very hard to combat. We used this tactic with England which we called DA, after our...