Dan Carter was part of 2011 and 2015 World Cup winning New Zealand squads©PA
Fly-halves have always been pivotal players in international and club rugby, with their ability to amass precious points for their side from dead-ball situations meaning that their form can often play a huge part in deciding who wins a game and who doesn’t.
Here we cast an eye over some of the greatest place kickers to ever do it in the world of rugby union.
A fly half has the potential to punish every slip in discipline made by the opposition
When it comes to deciding who the greatest kicker in the history of the sport is, there are few betting tipsters or media pundits who would disagree that New Zealand’s Dan Carter is the number 1. He is still to this day the highest points scorer in international history and helped the All Blacks win two World Cups along the way.
At the 2003 World Cup, Jonny Wilkinson just would not be denied and even as huge amounts of bets piled on for England to beat Australia in the final, Wilkinson remained calm and collected, received the pass, and then slotted one of the most famous drop goals the game has ever seen. Despite a career riddled with injuries, Wilkinson was always one of the first names on rugby betting slips at weekends, as he also delivered incredible performances for clubs like the Newcastle Falcons and Toulon, where he scored just shy of 4,000 total club career points. England’s current kicker and captain, Owen Farrell, has based much of his own game on Wilkinson, a ploy which is yet to deliver fully for those rugby fans who still use no-deposit sports betting bonuses to wager on the Three Lions triumphing on the international stage.
Practice makes perfect for those fly halves who want to reach the top
Nowhere near as famous as the other men on this list, Paul Thorburn was still revered by true rugby heads as he was renowned for kicking some of the most outrageous long-distance penalties and conversions in history. His golden moment came in what was then known as the 5 Nations tournament that took place in 1986, when Thorburn kicked a 64.2m penalty.
While there are other Welsh fly halves such as Stephen Jones and Neil Jenkins who are better known as being elite performers, Leigh Halfpenny received irrefutable proof in 2015 that he was the most valuable fly half in the world. This was established by a complex algorithm that took into account factors like kicking distance, kicking angle, and even the amount of pressure the kicker was put under throughout games. Halfpenny surprisingly outshone all his international counterparts in this interesting rugby data experiment.