Gregor Paul: How New Zealand's drop goal stigma is handing an advantage to the North

The drop goal needs to become part of the Kiwi rugby DNA, writes Gregor Paul. Photo / Getty

OPINION:

It's time for New Zealand to embrace the drop goal. To unashamedly fall in love with it, not as an occasional means to rescue a game, but as a genuine part of the attacking armoury.

For too long New Zealand has sneered at the North and their open love affair with the drop goal. For too long the drop goal has carried a stigma in New Zealand – as if anyone prepared to try one at any other time than the last minute of a game under a penalty advantage is the sort of person who would regularly buy white bread, cheat at golf and sneakily borrow your password to Netflix.

In the Six Nations they bang them over whenever they feel like it and down here, that's been viewed as a weakness: a symptom of having no other, better, attacking options.

The drop goal in the North, and most certainly in South Africa, too, is a legitimate and regular part of the game.

It's executed without judgement being cast, or any sense of operating outside the spirit of the game and the lack of emotional baggage attached to it hands the North such a massive advantage when test matches become tense and tight with little room to breathe.

Up there and in the Republic they know what New Zealanders don't seem to get, that the drop goal is not just an escapist ploy – a last hurrah of the desperate to salvage something when all other avenues have been blocked off.

A drop goal can be an effective means to control a game through scoreboard pressure.

It's a relatively low-risk way to add three points here there to impress upon an opponent that they are chasing the game and may need to take risks to come back.

But it seems the drop goal is destined to forever be ostracised in New Zealand – only ever granted the occasional cameo role in minute 79 as was the case in Canberra last weekend when Beauden Barrett nailed one to snatch a dramatic victory for the Blues after the hooter.

Blues' Beauden Barrett kicks the game-winning drop goal against the Brumbies. Photo / Photosport

Game saved, championship bid back on track and the drop goal goes back in the box – never to be thought of again until the next time a Kiwi team finds themselves two points behind and a minute left on the clock.

And this is all because the endemic thinking in New Zealand is that by retaining possession, the probability of that leading to success is weighted in favour of the attacking team.

The longer the attacking team holds the ball, the greater the likelihood they will be rewarded for it by either winning a penalty or scoring a try.

Keep rolling forward with the ball, phase after phase and inevitably the indiscretion will happen or the defence will break and hence New Zealand sides have it in their DNA to always go for the killer strike.

Without fail, they will go all out for the seven points to sink an opponent quickly.

But too often Kiwi teams overplay their hand inside opposition territory. They forget that holding the ball through multiple phases also opens the prospect of the defensive team snatching a turnover or winning a penalty.

And perhaps there has not yet been a universal realisation that the new goal-line drop out rule has skewed the odds against the attacking team holding the ball.

There's a higher risk now to pounding through the phases deep in opposition territory as being held up over the tryline doesn't bring the reward of an attacking scrum, but instead a chance for the defending side to boot the ball halfway down the field.

And because of this change, there is now unprecedented value in teams having a drop goal mindset, a clear plan on how to take just one or two phases to set up an easy chance to secure three points.

Dropping a goal under the current rules should not be considered a lack of ambition but an indication of good risk assessment: a sign that teams have done their statistical appraisal and realised that a derided tactic has been legitimised by the current rules.

Part of the challenge is getting the balance right – knowing when to snap a drop goal against taking the risk of pushing on for the try.

But that process of weighing up risk and reward can't begin until there is an acceptance that the drop goal isn't evil or wrong.

It's a legitimate ploy and sometimes a better, lower risk means to build scoreboard pressure.

The drop goal needs to become part of the Kiwi rugby DNA and no longer branded as some weirdly, unsavoury act.