Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "What I don't like about Paddy is his kicking style, the ball seems to torpedo rather than gain any height, and this looks to me as if he is getting too much on the end of the ball and not enough on the sides. This gives less room for error, and also means you have to kick harder to make the same distance. There are no stats for it, but would be interested if there were stats on how bad and how significant the missed percentage of kicks all were.
I am not claiming to be an expert on how to kick a ball by the way but Paddy is the only permanent kicker I can think of who uses the flapper style of the ball torpedoing for the posts instead of going up, and if it was a good technique, more would be using it, wouldn't they?
Maybe if he changed his technique slightly, his stats would improve? he certainly has a boot on him, if nowhere near that of Sykes.
BTW I am absolutely not having a go at him, on the contrary, he's been asked to do the job and has taken it, all credit and fair play to him for that, he's no need to take the responsibility but does, and produces respectable results, if not great.'"
I think someone said he kicked as though he were wearing slippers, which is amusing and pretty accurate I guess. I think I said somewhere (might be this thread, not sure) that kicking is a very objective thing to judge, that's to say they go over.....or they don't, and there are no points for style. On that basis Paddy is doing reasonably well in my opinion. Maybe changing his style would make him better, but it might just cods him up altogether as well. Maybe he could try it in the off, or pre season?
I'd have to say Sykesy definitely gets more power into it but (I've not checked) I think paddy has a better average than Paul in any season at the Bulls. He also gets odd days when he misses nearly everything, whilst Paddy always manages to miss one from bear the posts but never has those total disaster days.
