Think it has merit as an option, but to do it all the time it would be easy to counter
Exactly. You need to mix up what you do so it's not totally predictable to the opposition. The torp would be a good tactic if used sparingly. A quick kick to 30m out and then a long 70m torp past centre over the zone. If it was used all the time then the opposition would be ready for it and set up accordingly to counter it.
Mind you I know what Popelord is getting at. We are very predictable anyway with our kick-ins and so sloooooowwww in moving the ball.
We either do a short kick to the pocket for zero territorial gain (that's if we hit the target
) and we have to set up again OR we kick it longer to a 50/50 huddle 50m out and half the time the opposition get it anyway. Both represented by # below (yes I have too much time on my hands today lol)
________________________________________________
/ \ X / \
/ # X \ X#X 3X 4X / \
/ X \ X _._______ . / X 5X \
|----- | | . | . | . ------|
| 1 | X X X | X X | . O | . | . | |
|----- | |_.______| . | . ------|
\ X / . . \ 5 /
\ X / X . 4 \ /
\ 2 / 3 \ /
\__________/__________________________\_________/
I can't understand in this set-up (and it happens often) why we don't kick towards the side of the ground where all the space is (1->2) and as soon as that kick is on its way one of our mids leaves his opponent and sprints from the congestion to the free wing (3). Player 2 as soon as he gets it kicks it instinctively straight away (2->3) and then a HF (4) leaves his opponent and sprints to the opposite HFF (3 -> 4) and receives the next quick kick. As the ball has been moved in about 10 secs there's no way the opposition can get numbers back in defence so our forward line would be open and player 4 should be able to spot up a forward (5) on the lead in space (4->5).
The reason it never happens is because there's no player 3 offering an option on the free wing for player 2 to kick to so we stagnate inside defensive 50 and the opposition just roll the zone over and get numbers behind the ball. Frustrates the hell out of me
.