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Kicking coach Jon Callard's verdict on the Finn Russell miss
By Jon Newcombe
Former England full-back and kicking coach Jon Callard knows exactly how Finn Russell would have felt when he lined up the shot at goal which would have seen Scotland retain the Calcutta Cup for another year.
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In terms of the magnitude of the occasion, Callard found himself in a similar position when he strode up to take a penalty, 40-odd metres out, from the centre of the Murrayfield pitch, in the 1994 match between rugby’s two oldest rivals.
Unlike Russell’s failed near-touchline attempt, Callard’s fifth kick of the match was true and through the middle of the posts, to earn England a scrappy 15-14 win, but the Bath man said there was still some uncertainty as his boot connected with the ball.
“I had a process where I tried to listen to the sound of the ball as I made contact, and on this occasion, I remember hearing a slight splat instead of a pop,” he recalled.
“Looking back at the kick now, I hit it outside right, which I’d never done before in my life, and it came back in with the draw. I only wish I could hit my golf shots like that!
“A fortnight later, we played Ireland and I hit the woodwork three times and I was dropped.
“However, my philosophy has always been about embracing challenges and learning from the inevitable lows you get in life: it is not how you get knocked down, it is how you get back up that’s important.
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“It wouldn’t surprise me next game up if Finn kicks 10 out of 10 or whatever it is.”
Callard, 59, worked with Russell for around nine months at Bath, in his role as a two-day-a-week kicking consultant, which came to an end last March. Not that he could tell the Scottish international much about technique because Russell, he says, is a kicker who relies purely on instinct.
“I loved working with Finn. When Johann (van Graan) said he was signing Finn, I said Johann please, keep me around for another year because I would love to work with him as a personality, he is a super bloke. You couldn’t ask for a more laid-back individual. He is courteous, kind to people, very respectful,” Callard said.
“I got to know very, very quickly Finn is not interested in technical development. He does things in his own way. He doesn’t worry about drills, or compartmentalising the kicking technique to try and improve an aspect of it. He’s purely a feel player; he knows when he is feeling good and when he’s not feeling good.
“It seems to me that he doesn’t like to go through the process bit by bit. I was speaking to Chris Paterson (Scotland’s kicking coach) about it, he is very instinctive rather than thinking, ‘My foot had to be here, my arm has to be here’, and worrying about working through hundreds of drills to try and break it down.
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“His first kick against England, his non-kicking foot came out of impact a bit too early and when that happens you can lose a bit of control. When he was kicking well last season, certainly in the Six Nations, he had that firmness to his non-kicking foot and that allowed him to flow through the ball.”
Callard says there is a stark difference between Russell and his opposite number last Saturday, Fin Smith, in terms of adhering to a strict technique.
“When you see a still of Fin Smith kicking the ball (at goal), he creates a power zone. That’s when the heel of the non-kicking foot hits the ground, his arms extend up and his leg coils behind him. You can draw a line between his shoulder, his non-kicking foot and his kicking foot and he’ll give you a nice triangle. When you see a close-up of that, to me, that’s art.”
As for the kick that ultimately cost Scotland a historic fifth straight win over England, Callard believes it would have gone through the uprights had French referee Pierre Brousset not wrongly told Russell to place his tee a metre closer to the touchline.
“If I’d have been there, I’d have been asking, ‘Where did the ball get dotted down?’ because that was a crucial metre. He struck it pretty well, he couldn’t have asked for a better strike. When it came down to it, it was six inches left.”
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