WE WILL WITNESS several of the best kickers in the Six Nations converge in Dublin on Saturday. An intriguing duel awaits.

Ireland and France are teams with more strings to their bows than just putting boot to ball, but they both use their kicking game intelligently to pressure the opposition and position themselves for attacking chances.

Scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park has been central to the Irish kicking again in this championship, while out-half Sam Prendergast has had some brilliant moments including his momentum-changing 50:22 against Wales.

Prendergast has kicked 31 times in play in this Six Nations, which is more than any other out-half. He has also gained more metres with his kicks than anyone else in his position with 900, which is 200 metres more than next-best out-half Paolo Garbisi. 

The Irish out-half has also shown power with his goal-kicking, registering three of the top five longest goal kicks. His 49.3-metre effort against Wales is the longest of the championship so far.

Prendergast’s success rate off the tee stands at 67% from 18 attempts in this championship, with Opta’s ‘expected points gained’ model marking him as -1.23.

Gibson-Park’s totals of 23 kicks in play and 604 metres are relatively low for a scrum-half, but he brings real quality.

Fullback Hugo Keenan’s kicking is important to Ireland, as is his excellent fielding of high balls, while Mack Hansen chips in with a few nice touches, and James Lowe brings huge power to the party with his left boot.

Jamie Osborne, who is set to be involved again this weekend against the French, is another man with a massive left boot.

Indeed, Osborne has launched the longest kick from hand of any player in the Six Nations so far, a 58.2-metre exit against Wales that nudged him ahead of Prendergast’s table-topping 57.6-metre spiral in the win over Scotland. Keenan hit a beauty of a 53-metre effort in round one against England to keep him in the top 10, which also includes Jack Crowley.

Lowe used to be peerless when it came to these howitzers, but the new breed are keeping him on his toes.

“No, I haven’t,” said Osborne with a laugh this week when asked if he has had a kicking competition with Lowe yet. “Maybe one day!”

Ireland have kicked contestably to good effect in this Six Nations too, with towering kicks from Gibson-Park and Prendergast giving chasers a fine chance of regaining the ball.

Contestables are all the more attractive now given that escorting of chasing players is no longer allowed. Gibson-Park has four of the top 10 box kicks in this Six Nations when it comes to hangtime.

Ireland have also sprinkled in attacking kicks like Gibson-Park’s cross-field nudge out to Lowe for Osborne’s try against the Welsh, while Prendergast has sprinkled in several cross-field kicks, grubbers, and chips.

Kicking is clearly an area of the game they are spending lots of time thinking about and working on, led by kicking coach Johnny Sexton.

“Johnny’s a great help,” said Osborne. “He’s doing a good bit of work with the 10s but also the back three. I suppose from a back three perspective, you’re talking about scanning the backfield space, seeing if it’s better to kick long or better to kick contestable, those sorts of decisions.

“Because obviously Lowey, he’s a great long kicker and Sam of course. Then we have lads like Hugo who is so good and Mack who is so good at chasing and getting in the air, so it’s about working together and deciding what’s the best kick option at the time.”

The French have their own array of kicking threats.

Scrum-half Antoine Dupont’s ability to kick strongly with both feet means backfield defenders can never take anything for granted. Only three other players have kicked more than Dupont’s 38 kicks in play in this championship. And Dupont is top for total kick distance with 1,185 metres.

While he does a lot of France’s long kicking from their own half, Dupont is more than capable of getting serious hangtime on contestable box kicks. He has three of the top 10 box kicks in that regard.

He can also fizz sensational cross kicks on the move, as he did against Wales for a Théo Attissogbe try, and he enjoys dinking short chips over the top of rucks.

The returning Romain Ntamack is a disciplined and smart kicker, with his efforts so far meaning he is in the top five players in the Six Nations for average kick distance at 38.6 metres.

French fullback Thomas Ramos has the vision and skill to pick out 50:22s like his spectacular effort against Wales. His long kicking is also important as France seek to control territory.

Ramos is also good at hanging his restarts up for chasers, with his average hangtime of 4 seconds nudging him ahead of Prendergast and three other players with an average of 3.8 seconds.

Ramos is regarded as one of the best goal-kickers in the world and has an 80% success rate from 20 attempts so far in this Six Nations for an ‘expected points gained’ mark of 0.17.

Wing pair Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Damian Penaud also contribute with clever attacking kicks. Penaud dinked a stunning grubber in behind England for one of Bielle-Biarrey’s tries, while Bielle-Biarrey has shown similar skills in this Six Nations.

“They’re definitely challenging and we’ve spoken about that this week,” said Osborne of the French kicking game.

“They can kick the ball long, but they also come with a lot of little attacking kicks, little grubbers and chips.

“So I think the responsibility is on the whole team to be able to see that.

“The backfield will play a big part, obviously, but everyone needs to be switched on.”