The box kick has quietly made rugby's best playmakers redundant

BCBen Carter· posted 3w

Watch a Test match now and count how many phases end with the scrum-half launching a box kick instead of the backline actually running a play. It's become the default answer to pressure, not a specialist tool for specific situations. Win a ruck near your own line, and instead of building phases and testing a defence, a lot of teams just kick it away and hope the chase wins the ball back. I get why coaches love it. It's low-risk, it flips territory instantly, and when the chase is good it can win turnover ball in dangerous areas. But it's also turned a lot of international rugby into an aerial arm-wrestle instead of a game built around the runners and passers who make the sport worth watching. You don't develop a Beauden Barrett or a Finn Russell by drilling box kicks into your gameplan every third phase. I'm not saying ban it. It's a legitimate tactic and always will be. I'm saying it's become the lazy default when teams don't trust their own attacking shape, and that's worth admitting instead of pretending every box kick is a considered tactical choice. The Roar's breakdown of the problem covers exactly why it's become the reflex option.

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Replies2

FWFiona Walsh· 3w

Disagree that it's lazy. A good box kick with a real chase is one of the hardest things in rugby to defend against, and teams that can't execute it well are the ones who look bad doing it. The issue isn't the tactic, it's teams using it without actually training the chase properly and then wondering why it doesn't work.

GWGrace Whitmore· 3w

The stat that gets ignored is how often a bad box kick just hands the opposition an attacking lineout with no pressure at all. It's not risk-free the way people talk about it. A misjudged kick can be worse than just running the ball and losing a metre or two.