Morgane Bourgeois: How kicking has become a key differentiator in the women’s game

In front of nearly 40,000 spectators on the final weekend of this year’s Women’s Six Nations, Morgane Bourgeois was perhaps the player with the coolest of nerves.

A stirring second half performance from Les Bleues had brought the pre-match underdogs back into a match that, at times, had threatened to descend into a proper drubbing.

Tries alone weren’t going to be enough, though, and it was the metronomic boot of Bourgeois that gave France a shot at pulling off a memorable comeback to pull the Grand Slam rug from under England’s feet.

That it never transpired matters little, Bourgeois’ perfect record from the tee – slotting all six conversions, including three from the touchline – was further evidence of just how important place-kicking has become in the women’s game.

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“The game is so competitive these days and matches are becoming even closer, so there is naturally a lot of pressure on kickers and there is a big responsibility to kick well,” admits Bourgeois.

“In these sorts of games, where the scores can be very tight, every point counts, and if you’re not on your ‘A’ game it can have a negative impact on the rest of the team.

“Of course, it’s never just down to the kicker when it comes to penalties or conversions: there’s a big team effort behind it to score tries or force penalties. For me, it’s a case of making the most of this effort.

“At club level it’s becoming a really important part of the game, but it’s even more the case at international level. There was a time where kicking hadn’t played such a big role because the level wasn’t quite there.

“Now, it’s different and there is a lot more practice that goes into this aspect of the game; even in the men’s game, there are a lot more matches that are being decided by a conversion, penalty or drop-goal, so it’s interesting to see.”

Bourgeois knows a thing or two about the importance of a high kicking percentage, having guided Stade Bordelais to the AXA Élite 1 final last season due in part to kicking 14 points (four conversions and two penalties) over ASM Romagnat in the semi-final. In contrast, ASM kicker Jessy Trémoulière managed just one kick from six attempts.

In the final, Bourgeois produced another near-perfect performance, only missing the 100% score after electing not to convert Audane Rousset’s match-winning try past the buzzer.

Ever reliable, Bourgeois has honed her skillset meticulously and, like most world-class kickers, has become obsessive in perfecting her craft further.

“Over the years, I’ve developed my routine so that it suits me the best,” Bourgeois explains. “The way I approach a conversion, or a penalty is pretty much the same as I have been doing since I was young; it’s important that my steps, the run-up and the kick itself remain the same and I try not to let anything else get in the way of that.

“Of course, it’s different kicking alone to when I’m kicking in front of thousands of people in a stadium, but the idea is to try and block everything out and concentrate on my process.”

Bourgeois takes inspiration from some of the best kickers in the game, notably World Cup winners Jonny Wilkinson and Dan Carter. In much the same way as Wilkinson became a seldom satisfied perfectionist, Bourgeois is always striving for bigger and better, as the craft becomes ever more crucial in the women’s game.

“I’ve not quite got the same training approach as someone like Wilkinson, who used to kick every day for hours and he’d kick about 2,000 times a week!” Bourgeois jokes.

“But he’s someone I have a lot of respect for, who is such a perfectionist and who took his craft seriously. Carter is another example, he used to have a set of posts in his garden that he’d practice with so it’s fair to say that I have watched a lot of videos analysing their kicking over the years.

“My routine is quite simple: I’ll place the ball on the tee, take five steps back, redress and then visualise the ball through the middle of the posts.

“My feet are then in line with my run-up and the angle with which I want to ball to go. After that, I try to calm myself down a bit, get my breathing under control, visualise the posts two or three times and then when I’m in my ‘comfort zone’, I start the run-up.”

Such has been Bourgeois’ impact for the French side that she ended up as the Six Nations’ top scorer with 73 points, comfortably ahead of England’s Zoe Harrison. Key to this tally was her goal-kicking, but with a background in both rugby and football as a child, perhaps it is not surprising that Bourgeois has a certain knack for letting her feet do the talking.

“I played football for five years growing up before switching to rugby, so it was really natural for me to play with my feet and to kick a ball,” Bourgeois reflects.

“Playing football served me quite well too, because even though it is very different to rugby, it is still a collective team sport, and it prepares you well to be able to work together with your team-mates.

“I also played in a central position in football too, which helped when I moved to rugby and started to play full-back; I always had a wider view of the game, sitting back and analysing where the spaces were.”

Bourgeois naturally feels at home at the back, surveying the terrain in front of her but it is her trusty boot which has helped her establish herself as one of France’s bolted-on squad members.

And while occasionally missing out on a starting berth in Gaëlle Mignot and David Ortiz’s side to the rangier attacking threat of Emilie Boulard, the mental strength of Bourgeois has been a tried-and-tested not-so-secret weapon of late.

“I like the pressure,” Bourgeois says. “It’s not something that has ever really put me off, I have always just tried to shut all of that out and just focus on the ball and the posts.

“I don’t put any extra pressure on myself, I try to stay calm and concentrate on the job I have to do; obviously the atmosphere in a league match is going to be very different to something like Twickenham during a Six Nations match, so you do have to be aware of the situation.

“The best way to block things is to think about nothing, treat every kick the same and try to stay in the same frame of mind, which I’ve generally found quite easy to do.”

The bellow of upwards of 35,000 spectators, the vast majority of which are against you in one of the most intense areas of women’s rugby, certainly would test even the most prolific of international goal kickers.

Bourgeois has proven more than up to the task, and that a strong strike rate off the tee is now a key differentiator in the women’s game.