The one & only thing that impressed me about Wigan on Friday was Pat Richards kicking off, there again he has had plenty of practice I guess.
He gets terriffic height & swerve on the ball (from his kicks from the hand as well, just ask Scott Donald).
That allowed his forwards to be making their first tackle almost on our 10 metre line.
Sinfield's kicks go as deep but without the height or spiral.
When Sinfield was injured Lee Smith's kickoffs were more varied than Sinfield's and he was able to get more height as well.
I'd like to see him taking more kickoffs, just to mix it up a little.
Though when we conceded so few points I'd love to see it limited to just one kick per game.

Kind of strange nearly all Wigan's KOs were to McGuire though... not really that varied.

A great KO was Sinfield at Wigan (a) towards end of last season at the start of 2nd half. Bounced and went out at the 25 (?) for Webb to score from the scrum. Lovely stuff.

Yes, but if you look craefully Danny took them all very deep & struggled at times to pick up the flight of the ball.
That meant that we were taking the ball up from very deep in our 20 metre area.

Yeh sorry got carried away and forget to state I agreed with your OP.

I remember Danny having trouble with Richards' kick offs in a play off game either last year or year before so possibly why he was targeted.

Sinfield 9 times out of 10 always kicks to the left hand side of the opponents sticks. I find this tedious and don't see why he doesn't target a weakness in one of the opponents or just mix it up a little bit.

Just slightly OT, but was it in the CC final against Hull that Sinny got the ball from their KO and then kicked it back upfield straight away? That was certainly mixing it up a little... [size=59didn't help much like..[/size

Yeah it is, but from our kickoffs I & most people can probably guess where it'll end up.

Anyone remember the 10 yard grubber last season at HQ?? now that was ace!!

I agree that he is very predictable but maybe he is not looking for the oppos weaknesses but playing to our strenghts. How often do we concede tries from our KO's? The players know exactly what to do in that situation.

You kick to where your best chase is. Invariably that's JJB, and invariably that's towards the left hand corner. It also suits a right footed kicker to be kicking across his body in that direction, and pushes the non-kicking team into one side of the field.

Bang your kickoffs straight down the middle, and they can take the first play either left or right forcing your chasers to make decisions on the run rather than just lining people up.

Kick to the right - we have all seen all too often how bad most players are when passing to their right, out of their left hand. Kick to the right and you can pin them into that edge of the field and they'll struggle to move the ball over to the other side.

Surely Leeds' thinking behind kicking it to one corner is that their opponents will only bring it one way. Rather than putting up a high and spiralling kick (where it can be lost in floodlights or taken by the wind etc etc) on the off chance an opposing defender drops the ball, the Rhinos play it out wide to a corner. The defender has two choices when returning it.......Blind or Open Side??? 1st Drive you'd take it inside wouldn't you; I doubt many professional players would take it out wide, they'd at least run straight, if not they'd come inside. Which is where your greeted by Leeds' Pack and one of the best defences in Super League. I think its Leeds' confidence in their defence that makes them kick off this way. It means they have teams where they want them from the off..... Its working well for them at the moment too

Richard's simply has a more powerful kick than Sinny.

Please also note that he came down with each and every one safely, a very good achievement from those towering monsters. I'm not sure whether I think the modern kicking Tee's they're using to get such height are a good thing or not.

Don't know about Richards' kicking tee but Sinfield was told to lower his by Ian Smith V Wigan.

McGuire seems to collect the majority of opposition kick offs as if he is targeted. It doesn't appear to faze him at all and he makes few (if any) fumbles when collecting anyway.

I agree with you generally but found it rather odd that at Warrington Sinfield on at least one occasion chose to kick off to the right even though the sun would have been in the catcher's eyes had he kicked as usual to the left.
You'd have thought that the wind strength/direction and where the sun is would be taken into consideration at each kickoff.
Perhaps it depends on which defender(s) we wish to target.