HENRY SLADE COULD have been forgiven for dropping his line kick into touch a little shorter.
It’s unlikely anyone would have criticised him had the Exeter Chiefs centre found touch 15 or 20 metres from Saracens’ tryline.
With adrenaline pumping around his body and his side trailing 16-13 with less than 90 seconds of the Premiership semi-final remaining, simply hammering the ball deep into the stand to ensure a Chiefs’ throw would have been acceptable.
But the 24-year-old is made of different stuff and he put every single inch he possibly could on his kick, backing himself to leave his forward pack in prime position to grab the victory with their excellent maul.
The Chiefs had opted to play against the wind in the first half, head coach Rob Baxter explaining to BT Sport that “when you play Saracens, they obviously control the game in territory terms, so you want to get every advantage you can later in the game.”
It proved to be a highly-intelligent decision by the Chiefs as Slade benefited from the wind assistance behind him, but the England international himself deserves the bulk of the credit for the kick.
Saracens boss Mark McCall – whose side specialise in excellent kicking – later described Slade’s as “one of the great kicks of all time”.
McCall is not prone to over-exaggeration and his words are hard to disagree with here.
“He puts that anywhere else and I would be sitting here talking about one of the great wins and fights from a team who were a bit tired,” McCall told ESPN Scrum after Saracens’ defeat.
Of course, there was still a job to do with Exeter five metres out and Rob Baxter’s pack put together a brilliant maul to break Saracens and secure a stunning 18-16 victory to advance into their second consecutive Premiership final.
The Exeter forwards deserve huge kudos for their role in this last-gasp victory, winning the scrum penalty that allowed Slade to launch his kick and then motoring through Sarries with their clinical maul.
Indeed, Slade was keen to push the credit their way after the win.
“It came off the boot really nicely,” he told Chiefs TV. “I knew we only had a minute left, we had to probably go for it and take as much territory as we could.
It was only half the job, the boys had to put a hell of a drive together to get over the line. You can’t just talk about the kick, it was a hell of a drive to get over the line.
“It went a couple of metres further than I intended, but the wind carried it that way. I was trying to get it deep into the 22 because I know that if we get our maul 10 or five metres out, it’s bloody tough to stop. We had a minute left and it was all or nothing really.”
Unsurprisingly, Slade put his kicking ability down to repeated hard work.
“You practise them enough times throughout your career and the season, so it’s not like it was anything different.
“I’ve hit that kick hundreds of times in practice throughout the last few weeks, so I’m thankful it came off. You have your spot you aim at, you line your body up and just hit it.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
