Ford’s spiral kicks work ‘because he’s so flexible’
FORMER England coach Jon Callard has refuted fears that George Ford’s kicking masterclass in Leicester’s 36-31 win over Bath will lead to a new spiral bomb craze in the Premiership.
Ford bamboozled Bath’s England and Lions fullback Anthony Watson all afternoon with a series of high kicks that dropped deceptively short, allowing the Tigers to get back into a game in which they were trailing 14-0.
It is hard to think of any one tactic having more impact on a game’s outcome since Italy’s ‘no-ruck’ policy almost saw them pull off a shock win against England at Twickenham in the 2017 Six Nations.
Ford, below, perfected the spiral bomb during lockdown and Callard, who worked with the England international during his teenage years at Rishworth School, says it is tailor-made for the fly-half.
“People don’t appreciate how difficult a skill that is to execute, but George is a talented kicker,” said Callard.
“Also, the lights at Welford Road aren’t great and it was wet and horrible so it was a perfect marriage.
“To execute the spiral bomb, you need great flexibility and you need to get that (leg) extension up through the ball and towards the sky, like a boxkicker.
“He has got, what I call, good sagittal plane movement and transverse plane movement of the hips so it works well for him in terms of the biomechanics.”
The rest of Bath’s full-backs would have been thinking they’d dodged a bullet on seeing the normally reliable Watson get his positioning so badly wrong.
However, Callard says conservative coaching as well as the level of difficulty in executing the spiral bomb so expertly will prevent its over-use. “It is a useful weapon but you have got to put a lot of work in first, you’ve got to trial it in training and execute it well there before you can say, ‘right, this is ready for public consumption’, and roll it out in a game,” said the 55-year-old, whose involvement with Sale Sharks as a kicking consultant recently came to an end.
“You need to make sure you’ve got it right because possession and use of possession is so key. If you get it wrong and spew it out, you’ve either got a lineout where you’ve kicked it from or you give boys like Anthony Watson the freedom to run in a counter-attack. “Sadly, in modern-day coaching, and I am probably going to get shot down for saying this, we never look at the rewards on their own, we always think ‘what are the risks’? “That happens as an anchor weighing down on you instead of saying, ‘we know what the risks are, let’s go on and do it’.” Bath looked clueless about stopping Ford torment their back three; however, Callard says there are ways to negate the tactic. “Off setpiece, you can pressure the kicker with a good seven or you chase them down early, to take away the time they need to do it. “But most of those kicks came from open-field play, and Bath were giving George the time to get his mechanics in place to execute it, and he did it beautifully.”