In English usage, a drop-kick from general play that goes between the uprights is called a drop-goal. although Australians tend to use “field goal”. Both the 1995 and 2003 World Cup finals were decided by drop-goals, though they’re normally an insignificant contribution to match results. Penalties (place-kicked) usually have much more of the significance of an American field goal.
Drop-kicks are also used to restart play after every score (from the halfway line) and after the ball is put into the in-goal area by the attacking side but then goes dead (from the 22-metre line). All of the above is true of Rugby Union and I’ll let someone who plays or watches more League answer as to that version of the sport.
Typically although not invariably, in Rugby a skilled kicker from hand is a skilled place-kicker too, by necessity: we don’t keep a dedicated kicker on hand to take the field just to kick goals.
Or, to be more succint, your understanding is incorrect.
Place-kicking and punting in the NFL have been handled by different people for as long as I’ve been watching football, which goes back to the 60’s. For virtually all teams, there were different kickers for those chores in the 50’s. So this statement simply is not true.
I meant the first “type” of round the corner i.e. the bolt upright style. John Gray indeed was the first regular exponent, and Ross Conlon 'round 80-81 really popularised it IMO with some fantastic long range displays.
That’s a little harsh, DS. Jerry Kramer of Green Bay was both their starting guard and place kicker for a couple seasons in the 1960s. You will recall that he made 3 fgs in the 1962 NFL championship game. Gino Cappelletti played WR and K for the Patriots through the 60s. Don Cockroft was both the punter and place kicker for Cleveland throughout the 1970s. Certainly while 2 position kickers were trending out during the 1960s, having a two position kicker was not at all an uncommon practice during that time.
You couldn’t have kickers who were specialists like Yepremian until there was unlimited substitution. But in an era of football where all the players played both on offense and defense, you had to be able to teach one or more players how to kick. You couldn’t bring in another player.
Despite not being able to bring in a specialist, football teams cared about field goals and other aspects of the kicking game. There used to be a lot more punting in football than there is today as coaches were conservative and tried to play for field position more often.
General Bob Neyland at Tennessee, who coached there in the 1930s and 1940s, was well known for drilling his special teams over and over and over as he felt it was one of the best ways for his team to get an edge.
The only person you are citing who went both ways was Don Cockroft. That’s not the same as having Jerry Kramer do field goals and having someone else do punting, right?
It has been quite UNCOMMON (so much so you can usually think of the exceptions easily, they stand out so) to have the same person do both for at least the time period of the 50’s and 60’s. I’d be willing to guess the same is true of the 40’s as well. Which points to a very important fact: a person who is good at punting the ball isn’t necessarily going to be good at place kicks, regardless of how he approaches the ball.
There have been very few punter/kicker soloists in the NFL. Frank Corral did it for a while with the Rams, but he gave up because he felt that both aspects of the kicking game were hurting. So he stuck to place kicking.
In the days of single platoon football, usually one of the backs did the punting. Punting requires a more mobile player because things can go wrong. Place kickers could be big guys, like linemen in the style of Lou Groza or Jerry Kramer.
