You can set your watch by it. We score and get back in the game then there's an excellent chance of us making a howler of the kick off.

It's all down to communication. We switch off and that's when the errors creep in.

The obvious answer is if we score more tries we will get more practice simples.

It's a good job we don't score many tries

It's getting like night following day, isn't it. It was a good kick off and never gained much height, so was never going to be caught on the full but it just needed someone to get behind it. The under eights would have been embarrassed, you're right.

The worst part of all is not only do we keep making the same mistake, we don't ever actually try it ourselves!

Its much harder to field a bouncing ball than catch one.

If it didn't bounce it would be a penalty.

Rather depends on whether you touch it or not.

Whatt?

A kick off HAS to "bounce" ... or else it's a penalty?

Maybe the 95% kickoffs I see that don't bounce (cos they are caught on the full) aren't transmitted to Ilkley, I suppose.

If the coaching staff cant get a grip of this it's all over...o it is

To be honest, with regard to the kick offs, it depends more on the players getting a grip on the ball.

Professional players shouldn't need to be coached in how to catch the ball, or indeed the importance of catching it, that really should be done, as mentioned previously, in the under eights.

To be honest, I'm certain they can all catch a ball - whether they have the confidence to catch it or are frightened of making mistakes is maybe another. matter.

If i see a player get under a ball, in a reasonable position, but then spill it cos he's ing bricks, then I can accept he may have lost his confidence.

But when i see a kick-off find its way dead, with mystified players looking at each other as to how did that happen, then it is not a confidence issue, it is a crap play issue.

I am not saying a brilliant kick or a swirling wind or a freak bounce can't catch a team out but when none of the above apply then it is just a cockup, and it isn't lack of confidence, it is to me players just not doing their job. For whatever reason.

Kicking the ball dead from kickoffs is slightly different, it is trying too hard to do a killer kick, basically aiming the ball to land in a narrow gap within centimetres of dead. It is a high risk strategy and, even by the law of averages, you will get 50% of such efforts one side of the line or other. Given that even if you do get the ball "on target", there is still every chance a defender will catch it in play, or catch it with a foot dead, it seems to me to be too high risk a strategy to bother with.

And all that apart, can anyone remember the last time we tried one of these and it paid off? I can't.