There is something new in the water in the Six Nations. A record 111 tries in the 2026 tournament, up from 108 one year previously. The days of ‘kick and clap’ are a dim and distant memory, and the competition no longer relies on the strength of tribal rivalries alone to sustain interest. Now the quality and excitement of attacking play reinforces it, and the supporters of all the nations involved can relish both the ancient clash of arms between Celt and Saxon, Gaul and Roman, while looking forward to a fireworks display of try-scoring pyrotechnics:

In that aspect, the Six Nations is steadily moving ahead of its international counterpart in the south:

Ball-in-play time still remains the primary metric to measure the amount of content in a game of rugby. The more the ball stays on the field of play, the greater the opportunity to score tries. The main caveat, that a large proportion of ball-in-play time can be spent with both teams kicking the ball up and down the field, has also been dismissed summarily north of the equator:

The amount of kicking has reduced to southern hemisphere type levels and the length of the kicking game has dropped with it; from an average of 27.8 metres per kick in 2025 to 26.5 metres per kick one year later, comparing favourably with the TRC 2025 average of 25.4 metres per punt.
The new kick-chase rules allowing for more of a one-on-one contest in the defender’s backfield proved to be nothing more than a temporary infatuation. The Six Nations 2026 averaged 78 kicks per game in round one – but the crush quickly wore off in the next four rounds of competition, with the average number of kicks per game dropping just beneath the magic 50 barrier, and below TRC 2025 levels.
The culture of the game cannot change without sympathetic refereeing, and it is in this area that arguably, the biggest strides have been made north of the equator:

The first match of the tournament set the tone, with Englishman Karl Dickson awarding a paltry 10 penalties in the big opener between France and Ireland. The impact of the refereeing culture in the English ‘Prem’ cannot be overstated in the improvement of the Six Nations spectacle.

This is how the refereeing pattern broke down by league:

Referees from the ‘Prem’ in England officiated in the most games [five] and had much the lowest average penalty count at 15.5 per game, with the two top operators in the league [Luke Pearce and Karl Dickson] coming in at a mere 13 penalties over three games. URC and SRP officials sat in the middle of the table, in between the Prem [lowest pen count] and the Top 14 in France [highest].

Georgian Nika Amashukeli officiated in the final game of the final round, which provided a fitting climax to the all-you-can-eat buffet of attacking rugby. By the finish of a breathless encounter between France and England at the Stade de France, 13 tries had been chalked up and there were 94 points on the scoreboard. Not so very long ago, those would have been acceptable figures for an entire round of Six Nations footy, but not now.

One of the areas spotlighted by the clash between the red cockerel and the red rose was defensive decision-making in the two backfields. All of the first four scoring opportunities in the game posed a question in the ‘joint’ of the defence between the front line and the last backfield defender, starting with the opening passage of play:

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) March 15, 2026

There are two moments of interest in the balance between the kicking and running games in this sequence of play. England full-back Elliot Daly has a first option to kick at 0:32 on the game-clock, and one week earlier he would have undoubtedly kicked the ball against Italy in Rome.

Against France in Paris, he keeps ball in hand, and only delivers the order of the boot when French #15 Thomas Ramos has been pulled up into line outside his right wing #14 Theo Attissogbé. The ‘joint’ between Ramos and the last backfield defender [covering #10 Matthieu Jalibert] is far wider and more inviting than it is initially between Attissogbé and Ramos. The running game is used to set up the kicking game on attack.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) March 15, 2026

In this example from a lineout launch, England again employ their running game to set up an attacking, infield kick off the left boot of Bath scrum-half Ben Spencer. They want to attract both the blind-side wing [Louis Bielle-Biarrey in the red hat] and Ramos up into the line and empty the backfield for another kick through. At 17:49 both are still deep, at 17:58 they are up in the line, and that is Spencer’s cue.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) March 28, 2026

This is one of two occasions in the first half where Les Bleus got their own back. With the benefit of the ‘eagle’s eye in the sky’ it is easy to see how they manipulate the space between England fullback Daly and the last backfield defender [#11 Cadan Murley, coming across from the blind-side] by adroit use of the passing game. The second pass drags Daly up into line, that pulls the space between 11 and 15, and another precise left-foot grubber exploits it.

Summary

At the 2026 Six Nations, defences were sacrificed willy-nilly on the most spectacular try-scoring bonfire in the tournament’s history. There were fewer kicks made, less penalties awarded and more tries than ever before. The English Prem is carrying the flag for a new standard of refereeing, and the Six Nations has dutifully fallen into line. The kick still has a place, but only when the running game has been established. The rugby world has turned on its head.