Why NRL’s 20/40 rule has never worked but still can
Five instances in five seasons. The number tells the story before the argument even begins.
Since the 20/40 kick was introduced in 2020, rugby league has recorded exactly five successful attempts.
Daly Cherry-Evans is one of the best kickers in the game. Getty Images
Brandon Smith pulled one off in a preliminary final in September 2021. Daly Cherry-Evans and Ben Hunt each landed one in 2022. Isaiya Katoa brought it back from a two-year absence in Round 23 last season. Kaeo Weekes added a fifth in Round 12 this year.
Compare that with the 40/20. Across the 11 full NRL seasons between 2013 and 2025, excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, there were 566 of them.
The question is not whether the 20/40 is a bad rule; it isn’t.
The question is whether it has been properly implemented to achieve its design goals, and the answer is no.
The where and why: Yardage versus good ball
The 40-metre line is the boundary between yardage and good ball. Yardage is the grind territory where the outside backs and then the forwards earn metres in their own half.
Push the opposition beyond their 40 and you’re in good ball, where play becomes expansive with real teeth beyond ‘run it straight’ tactics because there is less risk involved in a turnover when there is better field position.
When a halfback attempts a 40/20, he is kicking on the border between yardage and good ball; if it goes wrong, there is still 40 per cent of the field before the goal line. A risk, but a calculated one.
The 20/40 asks something categorically different. Kicking from inside your own 20, should things go wrong, puts the opposition in perfect attacking position in the red zone, the most dangerous part of the field your team can occupy.
A kick out on the full hands the opposition the ball 20 metres out from a potential try.
A kick read and returned by a flying winger or fullback is potentially a lethal blow. It is gambling with a chip stack within one’s limits versus betting the house.
The 6-again parallel
On an episode of Chat and Business on May 9 2022, the NRL’s Head of Football Graham Annesley explained why the 6-again rule became anchored to the 40-metre line: the point at which a team leaves yardage and enters good ball.
NRL head of football Graham Annesley. nna\zgates
This underscores a principle the NRL accepts: location changes the value of possession, the reward, and the risk.
If a ball is knocked on and then goes into touch, should it be a scrum or play-the-ball?
Where it happens largely determines the outcome.
The 6-again has become even more prominent to how the game is played in 2026, having crept 50 per cent back toward the goal line from the 40m line to the 20m line.
The same logic in reverse explains the 20/40 problem: a kick from your own 20 deserves more than parity with one from 40 metres out because the risk is exponentially greater.
What the data says
Five 20/40s across six seasons is not about skill. It is a sign the risk-reward calculation does not add up. Nathan Cleary, Cherry-Evans, Jahrome Hughes: the best kickers in the game are not reaching for this weapon.
Cherry-Evans led the 40/20 count between 2013 and 2018, with 16 in that window, roughly one every nine games he started. The 40/20 has always been low percentage but worth attempting.
The 20/40 does not yet pass that test.
How to fix it
There are many opinions for a solution. Here are three realistic paths and they don’t need to be mutually exclusive:
- A greater reward: A seven-tackle set instead of six. An extra tackle doesn’t sound like much, but in attacking territory it is a meaningful uplift that changes the calculus for any kicker debating the attempt from deep.
- Risk mitigation: If a 20/40 attempt goes out on the full, the opposition’s tap restart should be capped at the kicking team’s 40-metre line rather than the infringement point inside the 20. This does not eliminate the cost of a bad kick but prevents poor execution from gifting the opposition a set at the doorstep. A player returning the kick brilliantly is a different matter and should remain unrestricted.
- Geometric adjustment: Adjust it to a 20/50. Moving it 10 metres further reduces difficulty without altering the spirit of the rule; rugby union’s 50/22 (based on 40/20) is halfway downfield yet comparable in distance.
Any one of these would shift the equation but by how much? All three would encourage the 20/40 as a genuine tactical weapon and give opportunity to teams struggling out of yardage.
After all, ‘rubber-banding’ is not unique to esports; physical sports do it too especially in sport entertainment. This is certainly better than the status quo: a desultory rule that appears in highlight reels once a season and disappears for another year.
The NRL has shown its willingness to be bold. The 20/40 deserved to work from the day it was introduced.
Five years on, it is time to give it the conditions to finally do so.
