Forget the closer hits, these are the changes the women's game needs to make.

England didn't have their top kicker Zoe Harrison this year in the Six Nations. Photo: Getty Images/Dan Mullan

Does he mean integrity, or is he undermining women rugby players?

The belief expressed by England head coach Simon Middleton that women should be able to kick closer to the posts because rugby is «a foul game for female kickers» — this is not the first radical suggestion the women's game has seen in recent years.

The debate over whether women should play with a size four ball , annoyed many in the game and has echoes of the argument for smaller goals in women's football. The latter is well documented, but with the advent of professionalism, it becomes less and less important.

This last idea is based on the logic that leading the women closer to the sticks would make the spectacle more enjoyable, because female athletes do not have the same strength advantage as males. This is largely true, but as professionalism in women's rugby continues to gain momentum, this suggestion seems somewhat out of place.

Context matters here. England was left without its first kicker — Zoe Harrison — of the Six Nations. Against Italy two weeks ago they had a 33 percent success rate from the tee, and it was a similar story the week before when they thrashed Scotland.

The Red Roses are blessed with confident attackers, but none of them can claim the longest penalties in the Women's Six Nations Championship in the past three seasons. These awards belong to the French Caroline Drouin (33 meters against England in 2021) and the Irish Hannah O'Connor (41.4 meters against Scotland in 2022). Irish Danna O'Brien is leading this year with 24.1m against France.

It is easy, of course, to conclude that women are not made for this business because of their biological differences. However, no one seemed to suggest changing the rule book when Owen Farrell wrestled his kicks in the men's championship earlier this year.

The women's game produced a lot of good kickers, but most just didn't have the same opportunities as the men. Years of historic underfunding have held back the game to the point that even today, access to a dedicated kicking coach is something of a luxury for many female linebackers.

They are badly needed if the game is to unlock more players like Emily Scarratt and Jessie Tremuler. It is no coincidence, for example, that the number of goalkeeping errors leading to goals in Women's Football Super League has been reduced by 73% over the past three seasons, because female goalkeepers now have access to specialized coaches.

Women also didn't have such ways to hone their kicking technique — the under-18 and under-20 levels are still a relatively recent phenomenon in the women's game. Given that we talk so much about one percenters in sports, we might as well mention that the majority of professional female players still wear men's boots, which is another factor that inevitably affects their ability to kick the ball.

And this is before we delve into the little-studied area of ​​u200bu200bfemale physiology. Changes in estrogen concentration during a woman's menstrual cycle may interact with the soft tissue structures that support the knee, which may explain to some extent why 46 percent of attempts were made in this year's Women's Six Nations after two rounds, compared with 68 percent at the same stage of the men's championship.

But women in rugby haven't gone so far as to be pitied because of their physiology. They want to be treated the same as their male counterparts. Let them show off and take from the touchline, but the next time you see them miss, maybe give them a break.