What is Drop Goal?
1.
Method of scoring in rugby. Throughout a significant portion of rugby's history it was worth more than tries. However this has been reduced to 3 in Union and 1 in League.
Taken by kicking the ball between the uprights on the bounce after having been dropped.
Since Jonny Wilkinson's proficiency at taking this kind of kick, there have been calls to reduce the value even further in Union.
NOTE: This was not an issue when Jannie de Beer scored 5 against England in the 1999 world cup.
England have started scoring drop goals!!!
That's not fair, the English aren't allowed to win anything.
See
2.
A method of kicking a ball by dropping it onto the ground and kicking it when it rebounds. This is a scoring situation in the following sports.
Rugby Union: Out of the 3, the one with the most common use of drop goals (although not as often as many people think). generally used as a last resort to break a deadlock in play or for a last minute win e.g. Joel Stransky in 1995 world cup and Jonny Wilkinson in 2003. Worth 3 points.
Rugby League: Significantly more rare for two reasons making it much less useful, firstly the low value (1 point) and secondly that any action in range is either when the defending team has the ball or when a player has run both clear of the defence and roughly three quarters of the pitch.
American football: A throwback from when the game was similar to rugby. extremely rarely if ever used due to safer or more valuable methods of attempting points within range and also the shape of the ball being far from ideal with an extremely unpredicatble bounce. Worth 3 points.
"and then he kicked a drop goal"
"I'm sorry, which sport were you watching again"
3.
A method of scoring common in Rugby Union, a sport where free-flowing play is as rare as hens teeth.
Commonly found in the 70-80th minute region of a game where 40 minutes has been wasted in useless stoppages and the rest of the game consisted of fat men lying all over the ball in a boring spectacle known as ruck and maul.
Also seen when unfathomable penalties have given the other side a slight edge. Once behind on the scoreboard a rugby union team will relentlessly kick for goal rather than engaging in any sort of interesting play.
