It all seemed so unlikely after Scotland’s rain-soaked defeat to Italy in round one of the 2026 Six Nations. While the Saltires toiled in the Roman rain with ball in hand, building 139 rucks for a meagre return of two tries and 15 points, England were setting the pace with their 12th consecutive victory over hapless Wales, by 48 points to seven at Twickenham.
The men in white looked to be at the pointy end of a new rugby trend, with a colossal barrage of 42 kicks from hand out of a total of 80 launched at the old cabbage patch, at a rate of one per minute. Only one short week later, that total was surpassed in the first round of Super Rugby Pacific game between the Highlanders and Crusaders, which featured 82 kicks, of which 44 were fired into orbit by All Blacks coach-elect Jamie Joseph’s charges.
At the initial stage of the two seasons, international in the north and domestic in the south, it looked very much as if the quickest and most efficient way to advance down a rugby field was by kicking the leather off the pill, and chasing it down like swarm of furies. The priest was administering the last rites and the eulogy was being prepared: multi-phase rugby looked dead and buried.
On a sunlit afternoon in Edinburgh, that theory was proved wrong by an 80-minute performance by Scotland which will echo in the memory of all who were privileged to watch it. Before the game, France defence coach Shaun Edwards had trotted out on to the field and looked up at the sun in clear blue sky. A frown furrowed his brow, as if he had borne witness to a brief glimpse of things to come.
As Scotland’s Australian-born centre and skipper Sione Tuipulotu observed in the aftermath:
“We were ourselves out there. We were aggressive with our play-calling, [when] we had penalties, we didn’t take threes, we went to the corner and we pressed the issue [against] a good French team. I felt like we lived and died by our identity today.”
Like Gregor Townsend’s old charges, the Glasgow Warriors in the current URC, the national team won by building rucks at high tempo. The Warriors lead the way domestically with a class-leading 110 rucks built per game. In the fourth round of the Six Nations, Scotland set 128 rucks without losing one single breakdown to a pilfer, while kicking the ball away on only 22 occasions. The raw stats from the contact area, the game-within-a-game, are a revelation in themselves:
Scotland set 53 more rucks than their opponents
Scotland forced France to attempt 250 total tackles
84% of Scottish metres gained came after first contact with a defender, compared to 57% by France
Scotland won the penalty count at the tackle area by six pens to two
Scotland made twice the number of offloads compared to France – 12 against 6
Typically, coming out on top any three of those five categories are enough to win any game of rugby, played at any level. Win all five, and you will score 50 or 60 points against any opponent.
One of the untold stories of the Scotland ‘day for the ages’ at Murrayfield was the success of their abbreviated kicking game. The match highlighted how the tactical use of the kicking game works in the hands of a team which does not depend on kicking to win games of footy.
Scotland’s kicks to contest in the first half sensibly forced the French backfield defence in general, and full-back Thomas Ramos in particular, to look directly into the sun when fielding the receipt:
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) March 13, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) March 13, 2026
The Saltires’ right wing Darcy Graham only stands five feet seven inches tall, but with the sun behind him, and shining directly into the eyes of the receiver in the first clip he grows to six feet three! The second example is instructive: France have kicked off into shadow-side on the Scotland left, but instead of box-kicking off #9 towards their best chaser [#11 Kyle Steyn], Scotland 2 and 5 are ushered away from the formation of a caterpillar ruck by their scrum-half, so that #10 Finn Russell can kick across field for the sun-blinding contestable – and Darcy Graham duly does the business ahead of Ramos again.
The creativity of Scotland’s exit strategy was best illustrated by a sequence at the start of the second period:
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) March 13, 2026
With the sun no longer an ally #9 Ben White kicks for Steyn down the left in the first instance, and after the ball is reclaimed in the air he is immediately on the lookout for the opportunity to fake the box-kick and deliver the ball to his outside-half instead:
There is nothing automatic about either box-kick. On the second, two Scottish forwards duly add themselves to the caterpillar ruck and that sets up the fake. But White is glancing at Russell, and Russell is looking back towards him all the way through the process. The lines of communication are open and unobstructed.
The scene has been set for a backline move keyed by Scotland’s trademark diamond shape in midfield, with Tiupulotu and #13 Huw Jones out front, and Russell drifting in behind to shift the ball wide and sustain Scotland’s running momentum with a move out towards Graham on the right. That is what ‘living and dying by your own identity’ really means.
Summary
Gregor Townsend’s men in blue were no slavish followers of fashion when Scotland upset hot favourites France in the penultimate round of the Six Nations. They followed their own star and stamped the authority of their running game on proceedings. But the accuracy of the running game did not mean a neglect of the kicking game, however sparingly it might have been used. Quite the opposite. The Saltires may have been running for their lives but their boots were made for kicking, and on the day they walked all over Les Bleus in both aspects of the game.
.jpg)
.jpg)
