Wanted to jump in on this. Hopefully ive understood everyones points correctly, otherwise this will be a long reply about nothing 
For me the open play kicking sensitivity issue is more in relation to the responsiveness between how much you move the analogue stick compared to the impact that has on your target direction in game.
I actually find the speed the circle travels on the ground away from the kicker to be a decent pace for the game.
The issue i find is there is no possibility of small adjustments.
So for example;
Lets say you have a player stood in the very middle of the pitch and you are playing on side camera. You want to go for a 50:22 kick to the bottom left corner. A good starting point is push the analogue stick to a 7 o’clock position on your controller, and hold down kick, you will likely get the ball in to the opponents 22. However if you accidentally apply too much power and you know you are going to kick the ball straight out, you may want to move the analogue stick to the 8 o’clock position knowing the power will stay the same but that way you are aiming slightly further up the field, and may actually get the ball to land in the opponents 5m channel.
A higher skilled player should be able to make that correction in the time available currently in the game to get a kick away.
The issue is where in most rugby games, that change from moving the stick from 7 oclock to the 8 oclock position would simply adjust the kick by a few meters.
Whereas in Rugby 25, that same small correction seems to change the target from kicking to the corner to kicking directly at the posts, which is like a 50m switch from what you intended.
I think theres some ideas to be tested.
- I know lots of people mention looking at other rugby games for inspiration. But Rugby 22 had a really good level of sensitivity for positioning where you want a kick to go, and higher skilled players can really punish with well targetted kicks, even with the attrocious online connection that game has. I dont think there would be any issue with seeing if you can allign Rugby 25s kicking sensitivity value to a similar level Rugby 22 had.
- Ive mentioned it before, but having a trajectory line showing the players kick direction is very helpful visually. In Rugby 25, once you begin an open play kick your eyes track the landing circle accross the pitch. However the landing circle is completely disconnected from the player, so while you follow the circle, you stop watching your own player to see if they are about to get tackled. Adding a trejectory line (even something small attached to the player) would help with allowing a player to interpret a kick direction better, and higher skilled players will get muscle memory for amount of power needed, and at the point knowing the direction quicker by just looking at the player is more useful than following the circle.
- Another option when focusing on the players time for a kick is to look at Rugby 2011, on Easy and medium difficulty. On those difficulties, they have an offside line at rucks that your players physically cant cross, until the ball is played. And if you mis-time the run hoping to sack the flyhalf, your players will slow down and turn around to get back onside giving the other kicker even more time, and punishing you for trying to rush off the line early. Something like that implemented at ruck and set pieces on lower difficulties could slow down the AI from rushing your kicker, giving the player more time to kick, and prepare them for online play.
I personally hate any aspect of a rugby game where time itself slows down. Or players do something in slow motion mid game. So personally wouldnt be a fan of time slowing down for a kick, especially in multiplayer where kicking will probably be a larger part of the game.
I do think things will improve naturally once the ability to drop a player in the pocket becomes available, just to give more time to the kicker. My own favourite option would be to reduce the sensitivity of moving the kick direction. Maybe even add in the settings a slider for “kick sensitivty” similar to how FPS games having aiming sensitivity, and allow players to test it themselves to find what sensitivity value they like the best. Could even be done during EA and we give you our favourite settings, and they become different defaults on release?
I also like @Valhalla_Vagabond idea of that sensitvity scaling with the stats of the player themselves. The higher kicking stats your kicker has the better the control and sensitivty of the kicking direction you have. That way when you start with a 50 rated fly half in your club, the kicking is trickier, but then you work your way up to international 1st choice, you can feel the difference in how much more control they have over their kicking, and you as the player can have a sense of progression in your team.