By Kath 15/7/03
July 14 2003

When the England Training Squad and Head Coach Clive Woodward meet up again next week, I wonder if Place Kickers will be on Clive's mind? I am sure somewhere in Clive's meticulous preparation will be a session for place kickers.

Why do we need to ask this question? Well, because this year's Rugby World Cup final could be decided by a  penalty shoot-out.  Crazy but true.

The IRB  introduced this game regulation and everyone has agreed to it.  The Australian Rugby Union confirmed way back in early May that all tied matches from the quarter-finals onwards would be settled by a drop-goal competition involving 10 players.

If pool matches are tied at full-time, they will be classed as draws, while knockout matches tied at full-time will have two 10-minute halves of extra time and a further 10 minutes of sudden death with the first team to score declared the winner.

If the scores are still tied, the referee will ask for five players from each team to be involved in the drop-goal competition from five different spots behind the 22-metre line.  The kicks at goal will be taken, for each Team, by each of the five players, nominated by the Captains, who were on the field of play at the end of that match. 

Now then the question pops up again which Five players would England use?  

Well of course Jonny Wilkinson, Matt Dawson, Austin Healey, Josh Lewsey, Neil Back (you may well laugh but Neil did a drop goal in the 6N Italy v England match 18/3/2000),  Who would you have?? 

I am sure we would all hope that England would not need to worry about such events, especially after their recent terrific demonstration of rugby skills over the  The New Zealand Maori, 'The All Blacks' and the previous World Cup Champions Australia.

But what if? - So I would expect some place kicking drills for this next training squad link up.