Alastair Hignell column: Ireland and Lions outside half Ronan O'Gara is the latest in a long line that stretches back exactly 30 years and contains some of the best goal kickers the northern hemisphere has ever produced. And me.

The others are undeniably the greater – and you could argue for ever about the relative merits of Neil Jenkins and Jonny Wilkinson, of Rob Andrew, Stuart Barnes and Jonathan Webb – but I was undeniably the first to graduate from the Dave Alred school of kicking.

Back in 1979, I was England's full-back throughout the Five Nations Championship. Although I was no longer the goal-kicker for the national team, I still had that responsibility for Bristol Rugby.

But the reason I stayed behind after training one night on the now built-over back pitch at the Memorial Stadium was to practice my kicking from hand, and my fielding of the high ball.

As the rest of the players cleared off, I was grateful first of all to have someone return my kicks, then glad to have someone capable of putting up the odd testing up-and-under.

Finally, intrigued that someone who had never to my knowledge featured in Bristol rugby before could kick a ball so hard and so high.

At one point he was thumping the ball so powerfully that in trying to catch it, I was dazzled, not once but twice, as it passed through the floodlight glare on its way up and then again on its way down.

At the end of the session, I learned that Dave had been a professional kicker in American Football with the Minnesota Vikings.

By now he was a schoolteacher at Whitefield School in Bristol and that, if I wanted, he could pass on some of the techniques and training drills from his former career in American Football. We only had a few sessions – kicking hundreds of American footballs into a cricket net to groove place-kicking technique.

We also thumped a similar number into the air from a discus circle to improve punting skills and "hang-time".

Or doing special pulley-based exercises to strengthen the kicking muscles – but the results were astonishing.

In a Barbarians match at Swansea, I hit a hitherto undreamt-of success ratio, with nine successful kicks out of 11.

And, come the England tour of the Far East, I was consistently punting the ball several metres further off either foot.

Unfortunately, I strained my knee on that tour and couldn't kick at goal, while an ankle injury the following season prompted me to retire from rugby altogether.

But there was no doubt in my mind that Dave Alred was onto something.

His subsequent success with Jon Webb and Stuart Barnes at Bath, and with Rob Andrew in the England team, was no surprise. Nor was his shoddy treatment by an RFU unsure of what to make of someone who approached their amateur sport with such a professional commitment to excellence.

But Alred came into his own when the game went open.

It soon became more obvious than ever that goal-kicking is to rugby union what putting is to golf.

The commentator's dictum that "driving is for show, putting is for dough" was easily adapted to reinforce what Alred had been preaching for years; that even though rugby is a handling game, whose object is to score tries, the big matches were more often than not being won by the boot. And Alred was perfectly placed to turn a compulsive hobby into a well-remunerated job.

He helped rugby boot manufacturers develop a product designed specifically to kick a rugby ball, he wrote an academic thesis on the science employed in the process and he became a key component in Sir Clive Woodward's World Cup-winning coaching team.

And, although he fell victim to the RFU's "Night of the Long Knives" a few years later, he preserved his links with his most famous pupil, Jonny Wilkinson who, it was rumoured, was happy to pay privately for a few hours of Alred's time.

O'Gara is now, it seems, taking a leaf from his great rival's book. Wilkinson turned to Alred, even though Jon Callard was England's official kicking coach.

O'Gara could similarly call on Mark Tainton, who fills a similar position with Ireland.

Both kickers, though, are desperate for the extra edge that they believe only Alred can provide.

Golf has its Dave Leadbetter, sprinting its Margot Wells.

When it comes to kicking a rugby ball, there's no doubt about it, the guru of choice is Bristolian Dave Alred.