That record high in points being scored has come despite teams keeping the ball in hand less.<\/p>\n
Over the past five years, the ball has been kicked more than ever in the Women’s Six Nations, with a steady and consistent rise from an average of 26.1 kicks per game in 2021 to 44.7 in 2025.<\/p>\n
The number of kick metres has doubled.<\/p>\n
“I certainly was blessed with England when I came in, because I had so many really technically good players, who could kick the ball really well – Emily Scarratt, Katy Daley-Mclean and a number of other players – and that fit perfectly with how we wanted to play,” Middleton told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“Other teams didn’t have that for a long time.<\/p>\n
“The whole staffing group level has risen significantly across all the nations, with an increase in coaching standards and a tactical awareness of playing a territory-based game, rather than a possession-based game.<\/p>\n
“Over the last four or five years certainly, a lot of teams have probably shaped their key players to fit that.<\/p>\n
“You look at Dannah O’Brien – she’s got a fantastic kicking game and Ireland built all their game around her, kick-chasing from inside their own half.<\/p>\n
“Wales with Lleucu George and Keira Bevan – they play a very kick-dominated game.<\/p>\n
“During my time with England, France became a team that kicked more than we did.<\/p>\n
“Two things have changed – the game understanding and the technical ability of players to be able to play that way.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That record high in points being scored has come despite teams keeping the ball in hand less. Over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-551186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}