just wondered now deacon has gone who will be your regular goalkicker?
im presuming sykes but isn't orford a pretty handy booter?

Sykes has been kicking in the preseason games.

Sykes or Orford I guess. Sykes seems to have been kicking pretty well in pre-season.

I'd agree. Orford does kick but, looking at his record, he's no Deacs.

We're planning on declining all conversions and scoring 50% more tries to make up for it

We want to surprise other teams with that!

Well, it'll certainly shock me!!

I've got a feeling that our goalkicking might cost us a few points (as in league points) this year - in the past Deacs has been on the money and percentage wise one of the very best. Can't see Sykes hitting the 80% mark long term.......

Yes Deacs was still a very good goalkicker for us before he left, it was the rest of his kicking game that had gone! Sykes was the regular kicker at Quins before coming back and was a regular kicker when he played for the Academy if I remember right (I'm sure Dilligaff will let me know if that s wrong) With Syksey getting the regular kicking slot I'm sure he won't be too far off Deacs percentage! With Orford and Kearney etc able to place the ball in better positions than Deacs, there should be more optimism on here!

That's pretty fair comment. Looking at Sykes' average as a fill-in kicker and making comparisons to someone like Paul Deacon isn't really fair and the one annoying aspect of Deac's kicking game was the fact he rarely seemed to get a lot of distance on his penalty kicks to touch. Looking at the squad, our attacking kicks in play should be definitely no worse, and maybe, an improvement on what went before. Here's hoping!

Maybe?

Orford's in game kicking is quality, and his short kicking is frightening, Kearney is good at long kicks, he turned the full back around a couple of times at craven park, plus both of them can put some welly on it on a penalty!

Sykes's drop-outs and kick offs are very good, and his goal-kicking seems to have improved, and given time to work on it again, I don't think he'll be too far off 80%.

L'Estrange also adds a little bit extra when needed, and it will be an improvement on Newtons kicks (they were dire when he was forced to kick)

Brad Mackay was the last player we had who was good at gaining ground from penalty kicks to touch.

Looking at Orford on YouTube you can see his kicking from the hand is absolutely top class.

not too keen on sykes kicking all the time n i do think it will lose us a few league points needs to keep practicing to get an were near deacs

He kicked much better on Thursday than he has done before, obviously been practising. There aren't many players who could get near Deacons goal kicking though, so we'll probably have to accept that whoever kicks will miss a few more than we're used to.

Sykes kicking doesn't give me optimism, I'd put Orford kicking but i've never seen him goal kick before.