Gloucester fullback Rob Cook has been causing quite a stir in the Aviva Premiership with his unorthodox goal kicking style, that despite an impressive success rate, is usually greeted with abuse and laughter. Here’s a look at him in action.
Cook, who joined Gloucester from Cornish Pirates last summer, has been the center of attention of late as regular goal kicker Freddie Burns has been out injured. It hasn’t taken long for home and opposition fans to take notice of a kicking stance that involves varying degrees of awkwardness.
A while back Jonny Wilkinson set the trend, and proved the concept, that players should be consistent and completely still before they get into their kicking stride. Cook clearly followed suit, but took it to another level, as he explained recently.
“I’ve looked through the years at my technique, and it just gets worse and worse – I’ll probably be sat down soon!” Cook said.
“A lot of people ask me about it: if I start kicking badly I might have to change it, but at the moment it’s working alright. It is a big part of my game, if I’m kicking well then I feel as though I will be playing well too. I enjoy it and I’ll just keep working hard at it,” he added.
Team mate Jonny May finds it as amusing as anyone else, but says that he enjoys Cook’s success.
“His stance is stupid, isn’t it? The first thing he does before he kicks is stand up normally anyway. I always ask him why he doesn’t just stand there, but he hit everything over today [vs Northampton recently], so it’s whatever works for him.
“Since he’s joined us I’ve been waiting to see what the reaction of the fans would be.
“It was brilliant when he took those place kicks and they were laughing at him, but he just kept slotting them over. I was laughing to myself at him shutting them up,” May added.
Below is a quick mash up of some of his more amusing kicks so far this season
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