South African dominance in longest kicks ever

A well know video, yet always a source of great entertainment and amazement is the longest place kicks ever in rugby.

However when we look into the detail of the individuals, South Africa appears glaringly dominant in the production of these long range goal kickers.

Away from the match day circumstance, Kings and former cheetahs utility back Gerrie Labuschagne clocked an insane 80 meter place kick on the training pitch at u19 level, making his technically the longest documented goal kick ever.

In the match environment, the boys from Grey College dominate, seeing Frans Steyn make the list twice, first with his pivotal 61 meter shot against the All Blacks in 2009 (helping the Boks to a Tri-Nations win) and then later with his highly debated “66” meter kick for Racing Metro, which is deemed to actually be 61 meters. Still not a bad effort. Steyn also helped guide the Boks to World Cup victory at the age of 20, with a long range kick in the 2007 final against England. Johan Goosen carried on the Bloemfontein trend whilst still a schoolboy, smashing a monster 67 meter kick against Paul Roos.

But despite the long range efforts of modern greats Dan Carter and Frans Steyn (yes we regard him as a great) the most famous of all place kicks remains Paul Thorburn’s match winning effort when Wales beat England.

Watch the video below by Offload Media and comment if you think any have been left out as well as which kicks you have been most impressed by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxNocWtFq14