AS THE MAN who works closely with two of our leading goal-kickers, Dave Alred has a more important role to play in Ireland’s international success than may be appreciated.
A study carried out by New Zealand Rugby’s Senior Scientist, Ken Quarrie, revealed that of all the points scored in a sample base of 582 international fixtures between 2002 and 2011, 45 per cent came from the tee.
Scores from place-kicking are crucial to success, making it no surprise that Johnny Sexton and Paddy Jackson call on the services of Alred, one of the best kicking coaches in the world and a man whose expertise in performance has seen him delve into a range of sports.
Golfers Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald have benefited from Alred’s knowledge, while he has also worked in Aussie Rules and soccer. His name was made in rugby, however, with his CV including England’s World Cup success in 2003, three Lions tours and many other honours.
Jonny Wilkinson is Alred’s most famous devotee, and the former Toulon out-half has repeatedly highlighted the coach’s role in turning him into the best place-kicker in the sport.
Sexton has been benefiting from Alred’s teaching for the last four years, and Jackson is now in his second season under the Englishman’s tutelage.
Racing Métro man Sexton comes under intense scrutiny for every aspect of his performances when lining out in a green jersey, particularly his goal-kicking – so starkly an individual responsibility in a team sport.
Alred explains some of the elements he has worked on with Sexton in recent seasons as the 29-year-old has developed his technique. The out-half’s unique body shape has played a central role.
“With Johnny, the first one was just to get some momentum through the kick, particularly because Johnny is quite angular compared with other people that I’ve worked with,” says Alred.
“Then when he started getting stronger – and he’s in a good place now strength-wise – it was working on his posture. People who are angular tend to compensate by posture drops on impact, so that can go a little wayward. I’ve been working on that.
“Just recently, we’ve been working on trying to kick with less effort on power and more on the quality of strike and posture. That’s been dramatic in terms of confidence and realising, ‘actually, I don’t have to hit the hide off the ball’. It’s quite similar to golf in some respects – less can actually be more.”
Alred stresses that all of these are minor elements of Sexton’s kicking: “There isn’t really a key issue, it’s an ongoing development.”
For goal-kickers on the international stage, it can often be the misses that are remembered and discussed, more so than the successful efforts. Sexton’s inaccuracy from a penalty against New Zealand in the 2013 November Test defeat springs to mind in that regard.
Alred explains that such hiccups are not down to any mental shortcomings, but are ironed out through technical analysis of the kick.
“Fundamentally, he didn’t quite commit to the ball and it stayed out there; that was it. What was really interesting was that in his last game for Racing, he had a kick in exactly the same position – same time in the game, quite a crucial point in the game and with windy conditions, quite blustery – and he absolutely nailed it.
“There was a thought that he had [a problem with] that sort of mid-touchline, right-sided kick; it can be a bit challenging. But we nailed that the first session we did, we spent time on that side and just killed it.
“There was an adjustment we made in terms of his commitment into the ball, really commitment beyond the ball, which sorted everything out for him.
When people say ‘Ah, he got spooked out,’ I don’t see that at all,” continues Alred. “I hate the words ‘spooked’ or ‘choked,’ stuff like that. Things like that are very demeaning.
“When people say it and I go, ‘Well, let’s see you do it!’ I just don’t accept that. If you look at his percentage record and his percentage record in distance from the pin, it’s massively impressive.”
As for Jackson, Alred is delighted to be working with a young player who he says is a natural place-kicker and an excellent learner. The Ulster out-half has seen Ruan Pienaar assume first-choice goal-kicking at the province quite often, but his development continues nonetheless.
“I think that fundamentally there was a shape change with Paddy, that he was quite C-shaped, like a lot of natural kickers,” outlines Alred. “In other words, he relied on spinning through the ball to get some power. That meant that if the conditions aren’t absolutely perfect underfoot, it can actually lead to some erratic kicking.
“Paddy is so talented that it took three days to change him, that’s all. He bought into it, understood it, he’s very diligent. In fact, I was with him last week up in Belfast and he was outstanding.”
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