Players Hone Kicking Skills

Members of the Munster senior, academy and women’s squads recently attended a kicking workshop with Dave Aldred MBE. Munster Assistant Coach with responsibility for Defence and Kicking, Ian Costello, discusses a productive and worthwhile afternoon which was organised by adidas.

Regarded as one of the world’s leading kicking coaches, Dave Aldred was inaugurated into the UK Coaching Hall of Fame for his contribution to the success of the England Rugby World Cup winning squad and was honored with an MBE in 2004.

During his time with England, his brief not only included working with Jonny Wilkinson and the squad's leading kickers, but also the players’ mental preparation. Aldred looks at some of the fundamentals around kicking and gives players ideas around practices that they can use every day to improve their range of kicking.

Assistant Coach Ian Costello takes us through last week’s workshop that was attended by the likes of Ian Keatley, Rory Scannell, David Johnston, Bill Johnston and Niamh Briggs.

“adidas Rugby approached us and asked if we wanted to do a kicking session with Dave. I do a lot of kicking work with our guys and I thought it would be a great idea – to have someone with that wealth of knowledge and another perspective speak to the lads. We already have a strong kicking programme here and anything that can add to it is welcome and everyone got something from last week’s session.

“Dave looked at some of the fundamentals around kicking – punting, spiralling, drop-kicks and goal kicks. He also looked at the psychological side of kicking and focused on practice which is a huge part of the psychology nowadays. It wasn’t necessarily about pressure and kicking in front of 50,000 people, instead it focused on different ways you can practice and how you think about practice – that all feeds into how you kick in a game.

“Following the workshop I then sat down with the players and we discussed what we thought would be worth implementing. We have a well-established programme and have very good practices based on what’s out there in terms of worldwide best practice so the challenge now is to take the nuggets that he gave us and apply what we want to our programme.”

Today @Munsterrugby great first session in the Irish sunshine working with the Munster crew @adidasrugby @adidasUK pic.twitter.com/zA9vo1TgJy

— Dr Dave Alred MBE (@dave_alred) October 14, 2015