The kick Herbert missed against fax was closer to the corner flag than it was the sticks

cheers mick. so at moment herbert has a 66% (2/3) conversion rate, ah van is 85% (17/20) and briggs tops the bill at 100%(1/1). Imagine herberts figure would go up over a bigger sample and briggs would drop, although maybe not a lot given some of comments from fev fans.

Still think we'll stick with ah van at least initially and let herbert and briggs concentrate on forming a partnership without the added pressure. Certainly an improvement to have 3 good kickers likely to be in the starting 17 every week before we even start thinking about sykes, addy etc. much stronger in kicking department this year than we have been for a few seasons imo.

I think that is why Potter let Ah Van take over, it was a bad miss.

As I've said before, stats can lie. I still think the fact Herbert kicked while Ah Van was on the field is a big indicator. But I also agree that Ah Van has done enough to prove he warrants a chance too, if he wants it.

Just trying to say I don't think it's nearly as cut and dry as people seem to be suggesting.




And yet, for the Wakefield game, Herbert took the only kick he was on the field for, when Ah Van was out there too. Could go either way I think.

Lets not get too concerned about who's kicking. The most important aspect is getting over the line in the first instance.

Agree and I think that with Herbert starting the kicking against Halifax could be a good indicator, but he missed his second which was relatively easy and then Ah Van took over and hasn't look back since.

I guess all of us with Ah Van in our dream team will be praying that he's lining them up on Sunday

goes without saying of course. Would be interesting to see in games which we lost over last couple of seasons by a narrow margin ,where the kicking seems to have been a problem, how many missed conversions we had. Always better to score trys and win by a decent margin. But in those narrow games the conversion success rate can easily mean difference between winning and losing.

Ok here goes for last seasons games where the result between the two sides was six points or less.

=#FF0000Round 9
Leeds Rhinos 20-20 Bradford Bulls
Orford 2/5

=#FF0000Challenge Cup Quarter Finals
Bradford Bulls 22-26 Warrington Wolves
Sykes 3/5

=#FF0000Round 19
Castleford Tigers 28-22 Bradford Bulls
Sykes 3/6

=#FF0000Round 20
Bradford Bulls 22-28 Hull FC
Sykes 3/4

=#FF0000Round 22
Bradford Bulls 26-30 Salford City Reds
Addy 3/5

=#FF0000Round 24
Bradford Bulls 22-24 Catalans Dragons
Sykes 3/4


If all of the above kickers had 100% the results would be:

Leeds 20-26 Bradford = 2 points
Bradford 26-26 Warrington = extra time
Castleford 28-28 Bradford = 1 point
Bradford 24-28 Hull FC = no difference
Bradford 30-30 Salford = 1 point
Bradford 24-24 catalans = 1 point

So we using the above we would four extra points (one from the 20-20 draw has already been counted) and would move up the Super League from 10th (19pts) to 9th (23pts) behind the Crusaders in 8th (24pts).

That saying had Sykes kicked 100% in the Warrington cup game then it would have been extra time and who knows what would/could have happend.

All IF's and Maybes I'm afraid.

I'll do the 2009 and 2008 seasons if you want me to.

assuming a 100% conversion rate (unlikely I know) we'd have got an extra 5 points which would have been enough for a playoff place. Last year wasnt best example tbh as a lot of scores in 2nd half tended to be fairly heavy losses. Seem to remember a lot more close games previous year or two.

If all of the above kickers had 100% the results would be:

Leeds 20-26 Bradford = 2 points
Bradford 26-26 Warrington = extra time
Castleford 28-28 Bradford = 1 point
Bradford 24-28 Hull FC = no difference
Bradford 30-30 Salford = 1 point
Bradford 24-24 catalans = 1 point

So by using the above we would have four extra points (one from the 20-20 draw has already been counted) and would move up the Super League from 10th (19pts) to 9th (23pts) behind the Crusaders in 8th (24pts).

That saying had Sykes kicked 100% in the Warrington cup game then it would have been extra time and who knows what would/could have happend.

All IF's and Maybes I'm afraid.

forgot wire was the cup game

Yeah it still wouldn't have been enough to make the playoffs but I can categorically say that when I post the 2009 season tomorrow we would have made the playoffs.

your forgetting if we'd drawn with catalans they'd have dropped a point and we'd both have finished on 23pts with it going to goal difference. we'd have just edged that through the extra goals.

Here are the close games from the 2009 season.

Bradford 13-13 Hull KR
Bradford 12-16 Huddersfield
Castleford 28-26 Bradford
Catalans 40-38 Bradford (Challenge Cup)
Wakefield 24-22 Bradford
Bradford 24-30 Celtic
Salford 18-10 Bradford
Bradford 14-20 Wigan
Bradford 38-40 Castleford
Bradford 14-22 Harlequins

With a bit more composure we could have been level at the top with Leeds who finished just 17 points in front as all these narrow defeats saw us miss out on the playoffs by just the sole point.

Out of that list I find the away cup game at Catalans the hardest to take in. I just can't get over how we could lose a 26-0 lead?

if we wanted to assume we were getting 100% kick rates, for fairness shouldn't we do the same for the opposition? I don't think much would have changed at all if we did.

Good point well made, but I think the point in question is we missed a HELL of alot of goals in 2009, and 2010 in particular. Those close games could have shifted with an out and out goal kicker, something every team probably had in SL over those two years and we didn't.

agreed, we certainly missed Mr. Deacon in that respect.

Definitely.

Whatever people thought of the rest of his game, I think we all took his goalkicking for granted a little and you don't tend to realise just how important that was until he's gone.

I'm not getting into a Deacon argument again but you would have got nowhere near the try line without Orford in the games he played, to be in a position to kick the conversion in the first place.

absolutely but we had nobody to make the benefit better. 3 converted tries against 3 non converted tries gives you that bit more breathing space and also puts a bit more pressure on the team without a decent goal kicker. scoring an extra couple of tries against the better teams with better defences makes a hard job unnecessarily harder.

wasnt he here for the 2009 season when our kicking seemed particularly bad, or did he miss a lot through injury?

In 2009, Deacon kicked 86 from 109 in Superleague. At 78.9% that's probably a little off his best, but by no means bad.

In 2010 in Superleague, Sykes kicked 37 from 51 (72.5%) and Orford kicked 31 from 45 (68.9%)

As Wigan found, to their cost.

Oh hang on . . .