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WILL KELLEHER

My lesson from George Ford in how to kick like an England master

Could I possibly emulate the technique of a fly half nearing 100 international caps? One thing was certain: teaching me would be the toughest task of his career

Will Kelleher
The Times

As I step out of the Sale Sharks dressing rooms at their training base in Carrington I immediately feel awkwardly out of my depth having requested a kicking masterclass from George Ford.

The players are drifting away from the pitch on a crisp, chilly winter’s day and look a little perplexed to see a gangly journalist coming the other way wearing tatty old boots, odd blue rugby socks (I have tried to hide the fact that the only ones I could find were inexplicably branded with the words: “Mr Cool!”) and a long-sleeved walking shirt.

Tom Curry is the first to engage. “Oh great, are we doing a tackling session with you on camera?” he says, smiling a little too enthusiastically for my liking, as he sees the videographer alongside me. No, thank God, the idea here is only that my right and left foot are closely examined, not my ribs.

Tom Roebuck has an eye on my boots. “Blimey, they’re a bit old school!” the wing quips, noticing that the Adidas pair I have on (last worn circa 2016, and found in the back of the shed still caked in mud) have one of those tongues you can pull over the laces. Jonny Wilkinson or David Beckham, I distinctly am not, as we are about to find out.

As someone whose amateur rugby career petered out 11 years ago with fifth XV university appearances in the second row, this was my golden opportunity to impress a Test fly half with my good-feet-for-a-big-lad skills.

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I always fancied myself as a No10 — who doesn’t? — so who better to run the rule over my kicking than Ford, an expert proponent of a variety of bombs, grubbers, chips, flicks and drops.

At 31, Ford should pass 100 caps for England during this year’s Six Nations (he needs two more to make it) and has notched 413 points for his country to date, nestling him in third on England’s all-time list behind Owen Farrell and Wilkinson.

Rugby writer William Kelleher shaking hands with George Ford.
The genial Ford showed admirable patience during the one-hour masterclass
ANTHONY DEVLIN FOR THE TIMES

It turns out that patience is one of his greatest strengths, though, as he diligently guides me through four kicks that are critical weapons in his arsenal.

Ford’s technical knowledge, clear explanations and attention to detail make the session a breeze, and show exactly why so many tip him to become a coach when he eventually retires.

He has to get in a little dig first, though. “Why do you want to do this? Fans, and the media, always hammer us for kicking!” he says as we meet, before explaining why they do it.

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“Kicking is not done in isolation. You’re trying to relieve pressure, or build it on the opposition, or trying to kick to get the ball back in a better position to attack more effectively. There’s a tactical game going on, waiting for the right opportunity to then run with the ball in hand and score tries. The way of doing that is using your kicking game more often than not.

“When the opposition are in your half it helps alleviate pressure, and hopefully puts a bit of pressure on the opposition as well. Everything goes hand-in-hand and is connected in rugby, so the kicking game is just part of it.

“It’s a big part of Test rugby in particular. Winning a contestable kick, executing a drop-goal, a territory kick or 50:22 can change the momentum of a game, so it’s hugely important.”

Here we go then, time to learn from the master.

The spiral bomb

First up, Ford shares the secrets behind one of the deadliest kicks in the modern game, the spiral bomb.

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He has spent years perfecting it, so he can wreak havoc with the opposing back three on command by sending up a corkscrewing, wobbling missile that is so difficult to catch.

Ford may not start for England in Dublin, when they open their Six Nations campaign against Ireland on Saturday, but you feel on a wet afternoon kicks like this could turn the Test.

“We try to make the opposition make an error,” Ford explains. “The best thing about this kick is that you can’t jump to catch it. You’ve got to stay on the ground, which gives the chaser an advantage to hopefully try to smash the guy trying to catch it.”

Positioning the ball in his hands horizontally, rather than vertically, Ford explains how to execute the perfect spiral bomb. “On a normal bomb you hold the ball upright, and kick the point so you get an end-over-end motion,” he says.

England v Argentina, Stade de Marseille, Marseille, France. Rugby World Cup. Photograph By Marc Aspland The Times
Ford’s kicking expertise has helped him to amass 413 points for England
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND

“What we’re trying to achieve here is a spinning motion where the ball moves in the air a lot more and the guy catching it struggles to judge where it’s going to come down.

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“Instead of holding the ball upright, we flip it sideways on to its belly. We kick the belly of the ball right on our bootlaces — and instead of kicking to the distance ahead of us, we kick to the air.”

This takes me a while to perfect, but on my third attempt I catch a beauty that rakes upwards, then drops like a stone, wobbling in the wind. Roebuck catches it with ease, much to my disappointment. Flipping around the roles, Ford invites me to stand under a few of his bombs, giving me rare insight into the nerve-racking world of a Test full back.

I shell the first two catches. Having played some rugby and cricket, I am used to the usual arc of a ball’s flight, but this is altogether different. Just when you think you’ve judged the parabola to perfection, the ball waves away, drifting to another spot, pulling your arms away from your chest as you flail to field it.

“See, you can’t jump for it!” Ford shouts, taking some satisfaction from saying to an armchair critic, “It’s harder than it looks, isn’t it?”

I just about catch the third kick, adding a “mark” call for good measure, although I’m not sure it would have stopped the chasers from smashing me into next week.

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England 27 Argentina 10
Ford’s boot stunned the Pumas into submission at the 2023 World Cup
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND

The cross-kick

Much easier to master this one, although there are nuances that I did not anticipate. In trying to kick-pass to your wing, Ford explains how an end-over-end kick needs to be struck.

“We want the ball to go really low,” he says. “Usually when we’re kicking high, the point of contact is higher, but because we want to go low, we want to drop the ball closer to the ground so we can punch it into the space.”

I lean backwards too much on the first hit, dropping it too long for Ford, but just about squeak one through to him on my second go.

Attacking grubber

A different version of the cross-kick is the grubber to the corner. Ford is a supreme exponent of these, feeding the wide men into the corners, having turned the defence. He explains that the vital element here is disguise, and where you strike the ball.

“The key is to look like you’re playing with the ball in hand, so that the backfield comes up to join the defensive line, which creates space in behind to then thread it through,” he says.

“We want to look as if we’re playing, maybe even show a dummy sometimes. That allows us to shape our body, to open ourselves up to release the ball. We want to kick the ball on its top, so we get a bit of an end-over-end motion along the grass.”

What he then reveals is that I have to hit one with my terrible left foot. I clunk away like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, short of WD-40, but manage to nail a bobbling, teasing kick before we move on to the glory shot.

Drop-goal

Ford has been one of the pivotal actors who have brought the drop-goal back into Test rugby. At the 2023 World Cup he hit three incredible strikes — one from the halfway line — to down Argentina in the pool stage, after Curry had been sent off.

“It’s underused, it’s a great way of converting pressure or field position into points if you don’t score or get a penalty,” he explains. “We went a man down early on [against Argentina] and scoreboard pressure is always big in Test rugby, so we wanted to find a way to keep the scoreboard ticking. It was difficult to attack with a man down, so any opportunity we had in the opposition half we tried to kick three points.

“Luckily, I kicked three that day, the last one took us to more than seven points ahead, so they were crucial.”

The set-up is critical, as Ford found out when he missed one that would have brought victory against New Zealand in November after a poor scrum and pass from Harry Randall wrong-footed him.

Ford shares that he likes to push off his left foot first, to set himself up at a 45-degree angle in front of the posts. Then it is all about the drop. Angle the ball so it bounces back towards your belly, between your legs, he says.

“If you drop it so that the ball bounces away from you, it makes the kick much harder,” he explains, repositioning the ball in my hands, having immediately noticed I have it all wrong.

Here Ford’s coaching instincts kick in. He watches me cuff the first one “like a snap-hook in golf”. The ball spins off to the left pathetically. The next skews to the right, before Ford steps in.

“You’re very quick on your leg swing. You’ve got to kick it like you’re kicking in slow motion; everything was good, your body angle, the drop, but you need to be slower with your leg,” he explains.

I try to calm my approach and, hey presto, it flies between the sticks. “Yes, third time lucky!” Ford shouts. That’s an England legend telling me I’m good (patronisingly, perhaps).

Is Steve Borthwick, the England head coach, going to call me then, George? He gives a light chuckle — a little too quickly for my liking — before being incredibly generous. “I dunno, mate, you never know. Keep your phone on,” he says, with a cheeky smile before leaving me in the dark to practise.

With the sun setting over Manchester, the water from the boggy pitch starts seeping into the sides of my boots, my toes freezing up. I’ll blame these conditions for my poor performance, I reckon. It turns out it takes more than an hour to become a kicking master like Ford.

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