Allan Massie: Why it's time for more intelligent kicking like diagonals, chips and grubbers

Finn Russell is adept at executing clever kicks but too much kicking in modern rugby is speculative. Picture: Brendan Moran/Getty Images

Argument in rugby often centres on the breakdown. This season’s directive to referees was meant to make for a genuine contest for possession after a tackle; more opportunity should be given to the player seeking a turnover.

But now it seems the balance has shifted. Teams – some anyway – are so fearful of losing possession that they resort to kicking. Perhaps the thinking is that while a wayward kick will give the ball to the other side, it will be some way down the pitch. Moreover, if the receiver is tackled, you may, thanks to the directive, regain the ball or win a penalty. And so it goes, a not very merry roundabout.

“We don’t set out to play a turgid game,” Richard Cockerill says. “But.. with the new interpretations it is actually easier to play without the ball than with it.” Some of the time anyway, one might add.

Now when people grumble about the unintended consequences of this directive, they should remember what provoked it. The law’s bias in favour of the ball-carrying team not only made turnovers rare. It led to a succession of pick-and-drives or to one pass-take-the-tackle-recycle again and again; a form of rugby rather like the succession of Banquo’s heirs conjured up by the witches. That depressed Macbeth; this sort of rugby bored lots of us.

Ken Scotland’s autobiography published recently by Polaris Books, has a fascinating and thoughtful chapter, written in the mid-Sixties for the Edinburgh University Journal, on the Evolution of the Game. Naturally some of what he says is outdated; much however is still relevant. At its core is the realisation that the essential problems in the game are simple: how to find space and how to make use of the space you find. This is as true now as it was more than half a century ago.

In a note updating that article, he wrote: “With the outcome from scrums and lineouts largely preordained” – as is the case today – “the main area of contest for possession is now the immediate aftermath of the tackle.” The repeated adjustment of laws and their interpretation shows just how difficult it is to achieve the right balance here.

The point is surely that unless there is such a balance, space is eaten up, defensive lines stretch across the field and the team that wins possession, finding no way through, will resort to kicking. Which is where we too often are now.