If i see a player get under a ball, in a reasonable position, but then spill it cos he's shiting 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.
