There were 221 kicks in just three Six Nations games: The next All Blacks coach can’t escape this new era
Thursday, 12 February 2026
ANALYSIS: The Six Nations began last weekend and while the subsequent headlines focused on the decline of the Celtic nations - a longer-term problem for South African rugby due to their participation in the United Rugby Championship - the underlying statistics are just as telling.
There was a lot of kicking, and the teams that kicked the most won.
There were 80 kicks in the England-Wales test, with the English responsible for 42 of them during their 48-7 win.
France and Ireland shared 78 kicks in Paris in Les Bleus’ 36-14 triumph, while in Rome the victorious Italians kicked 33 times compared to Scotland’s 30.
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The England and France victories were particularly telling. Those two teams look like they will be the strongest in this year’s tournament, and the fact they averaged 40 kicks a game is a great snapshot of how top end of test rugby is being played.
Kicking and aerial skills are the order of the day, and the incoming All Blacks coach will have to deal with that reality before thoughts turn to the sort of unstructured attack that New Zealanders want to see from their national team.
Kicking statistics can be misleading. Those statistics listed above include creative crossfield kicks, chip kicks over the top and so forth - positive and proactive attacking play.
But there is no doubt that the crackdown on escort runners, combined with some “group think” among test coaches, has encouraged teams to think they would be better off putting up a contestable or kicking for distance rather than playing with the ball.
There is a separate debate to be had about what this means for the “spectacle”, but two years out from a Rugby World Cup the trend line is fairly obvious: kicking rugby is winning rugby.
But that does come with a caveat: it can also be losing rugby if your opponent has mastered their aerial skills.
Take the France-Ireland game for example. Ireland smashed the Wallabies 46-19 in November because Australia were awful under the high ball in tough conditions in Dublin.
But when Ireland tried the same tactic against France last weekend, putting up no fewer than 17 contestable kicks, the French coped with it and launched their own attacking game as a result.
In the wake of the game, the French were being lauded for their attacking flair - and they have plenty of that - but the entire performance was based first on winning what Highlanders assistant coach Ben Smith has labelled the “set-piece” for outside backs: the aerial contest.
The panel interviewing the All Blacks coaching candidates could therefore do a lot worse than asking the question: “France and England are going to kick the ball 40 times. What are you going to do about it?”
In fact, the task in front of the incoming All Blacks coach is actually a lot simpler in rugby terms that it seems: get the high-ball, kicking and set-piece building blocks in place - it’s these foundational elements that have let the All Blacks down in recent years, not the lack of so-called innovation.