Round the corner kicking was an innovation in the 1940s of Willie Horne, the Barrow, Lancashire, England and Great Britain captain and rugby league player. His distinctive round the corner style of kicking enabled him to kick over 100 goals in the 1945–46 season and then he scored more than 700 goals for his club Barrow before his retirement in 1969. He is regarded as the original inventor of this system of kicking and the soft-toed boots he used at the time reflected his alternative to the toe-end style of kicking which was then prevalent in both league and union throughout the world before he revolutionised place kicking for all time.
The first global exponent of the 'round the corner' style was Barry John. It led to a significant increase in the number of 'round the corner' style players in the 1970s- Andy Irvine, Phil Bennett, Gerald Bosch. In New Zealand, they held onto the 'straight up & down', or 'toehack' as it was called down under, with such players as BG Williams, Bevan Wilson, Steve Watt.....until Alan Hewson came on the scene, the glove wearing kicker who kicked the last minute penalty at Eden Park in 1981, in an South Africa - New Zealand game. (CLA)
The proponents of Round The Corner kicking which is the generally required method of kicking in rugby union today argue that greater accuracy and range can be obtained by this method compared to the Toe Kick method.
It can be argued that:
The disadvantage of round the corner may be that it is more difficult to aim the ball especially when kicking from the side of the field, this requires greater accuracy to get the ball between the poles. Players using this method do carefully measured steps to put them in the right position to kick the ball in the desired direction.
Nevertheless some older players that used the Toe Kick method in the seventies argue that there is little difference between Round The Corner and Toe Kicking and that Round The Corner Kicking is just a fad.