Kicking Percentage Lies
I wrote about the flaws in Kicking Percentage for the Irish Times, and how some people are doing a better job at rating place kickers. Published Wednesday, March 18th 2015.
Risk versus reward. That’s at the heart of the silent process a rugby union captain goes through in those moments after a penalty has been awarded before looking towards the referee and deciding whether to go for the posts.
The kicking tee will arrive and the kicker will start their routine. Clear the mental mechanism. Scrum cap might come off; gumshield perhaps tucked into a sock. Slow down the breathing. The kick could be a gimme in front of the posts or 50 metres back, hugging the touchline, but the kicker’s routine should be the same. Bob is an 80 per cent kicker. That means he’s probably pretty good. But the kicking stat usually used to quantify kicking success does not discern whether a kick is from 15 metres or 50.
The unfortunate truth is that kicking percentage lies.
