November 1, 2018

How to Drop a Kick in Rugby?

Rugby is a Football type of game, where instead of continuously punching a ball towards the opponent’s gates with your feet, you run with your ball in your arms towards the opponent’s goal side.

Rugby is a much more aggressive type of football game because players are allowed to block the opponents with physical contacts, although no punches are allowed.
In this article, we will talk about a particular move in Rugby – Drop Kick, which is a move familiar to any Football player.

It’s essentially an action where a player drops the ball towards the ground that allows him to punch it with his foot to whatever direction he aims. But there is a specific difference: in a regular Football game, the ball should be hit by the player before it touches the ground, while in Rugby game the ball should be hit by the player immediately after it touches and bounces off the ground.

Performing a Drop Kick sounds easy at first, but there is a specific technique that a player needs to follow

1) The player holds the ball with both hands and positions it above the kicking leg and in a distance of a. The player holds the ball with his fingers pointing towards the ground, with one end of the ball pointing the same direction.

Simultaneously as the player drops the ball, he steps towards the dropping ball with his one leg (often left). The time the player makes this step should be from half to two-thirds of a distance the ball travels towards the ground. The player’s balance remains of the kicking leg (often right) to himself to step forward. During the step, the player shifts the standing balance towards the kicking toe.

2) The player drops the ball downwards in front of the kicking foot. The player waits for a ball to hit the ground and bounce off of it, so he can make a kick.

Simultaneously as the ball flies towards the ground and reaches it, the player shifts the standing balance towards the leg he stepped with, as mentioned previously, and swings his kicking leg towards the dropping ball. The time the player makes the swing should take from one third to less than half of a distance the ball travels towards the ground, and the velocity of a swing should be twice faster than the first step.

3) The moment the ball bounces off the ground, the player hits it with the toe of his kicking foot. Given the amount of time provided to do the entire move should leave the player with a split second for the player hit the ball the moment it starts to go upwards. Notice that the ball might bounce off to the wrong direction before the player would be able to hit it.

That depends on how the player positions the ball in relation to himself and the ground, how he dropped it, and what kind of ground it bounces off (which is the least likable reason for a ball to bounce off to the wrong direction, unless you drop it to some ground that is not entirely flat). Despite this reason or another, the player must react quickly to hit the ball exactly with his toe.