Off the ball: Warriors need Wilkinson's magic touch

By DAVID LEGGAT

This is a tale of two kickers, or more precisely one kicker and a team of kickers.

Tomorrow, the New Zealand Warriors play the Manly Sea Eagles in their third-round NRL match in Sydney. So far they have a 50-50 winning record, but of most concern for the team management must be goalkicking.

Against the Newcastle Knights in round one they lost by 10 points, before beating the Bulldogs by four last weekend.

An argument can be made that they might have beaten the Knights had Ivan Cleary still been in the colours; against the Bulldogs the Warriors bagged five tries, converted only two and the result could have gone pear-shaped for that reason.

The Warriors have goaled five of their 11 attempts in the first two games.

Everyone loves to see tries. They are the point of the exercise in both oval ball codes. But you cannot overstate how important it is to have a reliable, high-quality kicker. Put simply, it is often the difference between victory and defeat.

Of the three losses from last year's grand final Warriors - Kevin Campion, Cleary and Ali Lauiti'iti - I have always believed Cleary's contribution would be the hardest to replace. The Warriors had their reasons for dispensing with Cleary, one of those rare players whose success rate averaged over 80 per cent, and there is no point in dwelling on that.

For the ageing Campion's hardness and reliability, you have a younger, fit Monty Betham; for all Lauiti'iti's brilliance with ball in hand, the Warriors have still scored 10 tries in two games.

But with no disrespect intended, Stacey Jones and P. J. Marsh, who have excellent other qualities, are not goalkickers you would put your house on. You don't become a Daryl Halligan overnight.

Still, that is the Warriors lot this season, and there is a nagging feeling that at some point in the next six months it will cost them big time.

On Monday morning, England and Ireland clash for a rugby Grand Slam in Dublin. It promises to be a marvellous occasion, England hard, rugged, difficult to beat and with confidence high against an Ireland side who are now undoubtedly more than merely 60-minute wonders who would give you fire and brimstone before the light went out.

England's biggest weapon is Jonny Wilkinson, their 23-year-old first five-eighth, who is perhaps the best placekicker in the game.

Wilkinson's 42 tests have produced an average return of a tick over 15 points. In England's four Six Nations matches this season, they have scored 13 tries. Wilkinson has converted 10 of them; England have scored 131 points, Wilkinson's cut is 62 points.

It is curious that the British media took a dim view of Grant Fox's metronomic kicking which contributed hugely to the All Blacks' success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, yet Wilkinson is lauded as The Man.

In fairness, Wilkinson is a class act, an incisive runner, a game tackler who punches well above his (light) weight.

But in a tight contest, as Monday's should be (and, with this writer's bloodlines, hopefully ending in a win for the men in green), it will be Wilkinson's unerring boot which could hold the key. I hope it doesn't come to this, but I suspect at some point this year the Warriors will be wishing they had a Wilkinson.


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