World Rugby has just published a new edition of the laws of the game, but to save you flicking through all 159 pages, I can assure you one thing hasn’t changed, and that’s the absence of any stipulation as to how often a team should kick or run or pass.
It’s still up to the players and the coaches – always has been, always will be – and when England chose the kicking route to beat Scotland at Twickenham last Saturday, the spectators at Twickenham were booing them for doing it.
While we wait to see whether England use these tactics so heavily again in their remaining matches against Italy and Wales in this Six Nations, it’s worth reflecting on why some of the fans got the hump in what turned out to be a 16-15 victory over opponents who had won the previous four meetings.
Lots of winning teams kick the ball from their own half – including successful All Blacks teams of recent vintage, and the France team who won the Six Nations in 2022.
Ireland used the boot in their victory in Wales last weekend, kicking 38 times to England’s 36 against the Scots.
For the Irish, it was instrumental in turning an unusually ponderous display of handling (the reigning Six Nations champions can look pretty ordinary when their power game lacks its maximum zip) into an assured win through the application of pressure, and the relief of it from Wales.
There was Jamison Gibson-Park’s superbly directed and lengthy line-kicking, and Sam Prendergast’s long punts finding space around a callow (yet exciting) Wales back three.
So maybe the most useful way of looking at this debate is the difference between good and bad kicking – and this could be divided into two further categories: is the kicking effective in and of itself, and is it detracting from another strength in your game?
🎥 The inch-perfect kick from Gibson-Park, the sensational leap from Lowe and the player in the perfect place is Osborne…a stunner from Ireland 🫡☘️#guinnessm6n pic.twitter.com/91bNczOC0o— Guinness Men's Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby)
The latter question dogged England and their head coach Steve Borthwick throughout the 2023 World Cup, when they kicked relentlessly and, notably, sometimes when presentable alternative plays were on.
This reporter turned up to the eventual “bronze final” in Paris fairly sick of watching version 1.0 of Borthball for seven weeks, and barely cared when England won by reproducing it against Argentina, turning the likes of Henry Arundell into a peripheral figure.
They neutered the skills of Alex Mitchell as a running scrum-half, and Marcus Smith was knocking about at full-back, and England’s centres and wings were developing cricks in their necks chasing high balls.
But England edged past Samoa and Fiji to reach the semi-final, where they very nearly beat South Africa.
So this is where the first question – is the kicking effective and justified? – comes in.
Elliot Daly and others did well in the aerial contest against one of the great South Africa teams, and with just a bit more quality in the last 10 minutes, England would have been in the final.
It depends on how good you are at the kicking and what happens after the kicking: winning aerial contests, making the most of space and the disjointed opposition defence, throwing in an element of surprise by not kicking when it is expected, and so on.
Yes, England beat Scotland, but with only one try while the crowd were wound up by the relentless box-kicking by Mitchell, a couple of grubbers from Henry Slade, and Fin Smith in the second half choosing to go high and wide with kicks to the wing.
It was not all “bad” kicking but some of the Mitchell kicks and a couple of the punts by Smith appeared to wilfully ignore promising attacking set-ups on the ground in favour of going to the air.
And remember, this was just two weeks after England had a different taste of moving the ball downfield, albeit with the same ultimate result of a one-point win.
England made 95 carries for 700 metres including eight line-breaks against France, compared with 79 carries for 474 metres and two line‑breaks against the Scots.
Yes, the second England try in the French match came from a kick-pass by Fin Smith to Tommy Freeman, but it had a clear purpose and was set up by good carrying.
🏉 @sageuk Play of the Round 💪 Alex Mitchell throws a 8m pass at 34.6kph to Fin Smith who changes direction to send the 23.5m cross-field kick to Tommy Freeman who catches it after a 2.7s hangtime to score the try for England 🤩#SageInsights pic.twitter.com/LrOlXjAPao— Guinness Men's Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby)
And it was Borthwick who said before the Scotland match: “We have now got pace on edges, we have now got distributors and ball-players.”
We didn’t see much of it, and Ollie Sleightholme hardly had a touch on the wing before he was replaced by Daly after 44 minutes.
Afterwards, Borthwick said Scotland’s tactics had forced the issue. And he and his coaches could probably produce data on the percentage chances of gaining or losing territory and scoring chances from booting the ball, particularly when Scotland were slowing the speed of ball at the breakdown.
And of course, the Catch 22 for England is if they have less of the ball, it throws more of a light on the tactic of kicking it. But the crowd at Twickenham are entitled to believe or at least hope their team is capable of doing anything it likes, because it’s at home.
It’s one of the oldest debates in rugby, and I remember excitedly nabbing a ticket to a Grand Slam decider between England and Scotland at Twickenham in 1995, only to share in a crowd bored stupid by relentless kicking from both teams. A quick look back at the post-match commentary on England shows it was much the same as this week’s, except the achievement of the Slam dissipated the criticism.
The lesson is you have got to be very good at both kicking and winning for the punters in the stands not to want to put the boot in.
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