Six nations stats so far

From Planet Rugby website



With all six teams now having played three games we can compare the Official Match Data gathered from the nine matches contested so far.

Championship leaders Wales have made, and missed, the most tackles but Scotland and England have the worst tackle completion stats at 91 percent compared to Ireland's 96 percent.

Indeed, the men in green have amazing defensive numbers having missed just 14 tackles in 240 minutes of rugby.

It terms of style of play, there is perhaps no more telling statistic than the 'passes completed': Scotland have pass the ball 704 times compared to Wales, who are next with 489, or England, who passed the least with 382.

England do however have the best kicking numbers with a strike rate of 80 percent thanks to Owen Farrell's accurate boot, unlike Italy who have missed exactly half their attempts at goal!

Scotland have also made the most line-breaks and won the most possession in the opposition's 22, which will be terribly frustrating for coach Andy Robinson since they have also score the least points.

One area that Robinson will be happy with is the line-outs where Scotland have won 33 and have yet to lose one on their own throw in.

Wales have successfully mauled the ball just four times in three games while it seems to be a favourite tactic for the French, who have mauled it up no less than 15 times.

The French have looked to keep ball in hand the most, kicking just 51 times while England have put ball to boot the most.

England are the least dangerous team on attack by some distance having made just three line-breaks and scored just two tries in three matches. With games against the tournament's two best defensive teams - Ireland and France - left on the menu, Stuart Lancaster's men a have a lot of work to do.

Statistics after three rounds

Most tackles made: Wales - 371
Most tackles missed: Wales - 34
Most passes completed: Scotland - 704
Most line breaks: Scotland - 14
Most possession kicked: England - 81
Most turnovers won: Ireland - 16
Most offloads in tackle: Scotland - 38
Most errors made: Italy / Scotland - 36
Most penalties conceded: Wales - 32

Fewest tackles missed: Ireland - 14
Fewest errors made: Wales - 32
Fewest penalties conceded: France - 16

Most points scored: Ireland - 80
Most tries scored: Ireland - 9
Fewest tries conceded: Wales - 3

Most tries conceded: Italy - 10
Fewest tries scored: England - 2
Fewest points scored: Scotland - 36

Most points scored (player): Leigh Halfpenny (Wal) - 44
Most tries scored (player): Tommy Bowe (Ire) - 5

France 17 - 17 Ireland

Having had the worst line-out stats in the first two rounds, France turned the tables on their visitors, stealing three Irish line-outs.

But the stat the Irish will be ruing the most will be the 'penalties conceded' column where the gave away almost three-times as many as the French.

Of course les Bleus will point to the 0-from-2 drops goal attempts from Lionel Beauxis....just one would have been enough for victory.

Possession:
France: 50%
Ireland: 50%

Territory:
France: 56%
Ireland: 44%

Penalties conceded:
France: 4
Ireland: 11

Passes completed:
France: 155
Ireland: 113

Line breaks:
France: 2
Ireland: 2

Ruck and drive v Ruck and pass:
France: 41 - 46
Ireland: 32 - 36

Scrums lost - Line-outs lost:
France: 0 - 0
Ireland: 0 - 3

Ball won in open play - in opposition 22 - in set pieces - in turnovers:
France: 93 - 16 - 32 - 1
Ireland: 69 - 22 - 12 - 4

Possession kicked - Kicks to touch - Percentage kicks
France: 17 - 2 - 32%
Ireland: 18 - 3 - 42%

Tackles made - tackles missed - tackle completion
France: 80 - 4 - 95%
Ireland: 112 - 4 - 96%

Total errors made - errors from kicks:
France: 6 - 2
Ireland: 9 - 1

How our attack coach has not been sacked is a minor miracle with those stats on Scotland ... *facepalm*

PS thanks for the stats!

No problem I thought it was an article well worth sharing, it's unbiased focus contradicts a lot of posters on these boards.

Lies, damn lies and statistics!

Wow, the stats say that Ireland are a much better team than my eyes have been seeing

Had to get that in Taff, you understand

Stats don't pay the bills, Billy...stats don't pay the bills ...

Ahhh come on rodders, check those stats again and you will see that Deccie is actually a genious

Funny how Ireland have the highest number of turnovers, when the line most of us are going along with is that the Irish backrow us unbalanced. Is the number of penalties conceded, worth it for the number of turnovers we're making though?

The fact that Ireland have the most tries scored and the most points scored also seems to go against the prevailing thoughts of fans; that Ireland are to defensively minded. But it might be skewed by the fact we played Italy at home.

The cold hard stats suggest Ireland aren't in terrible shape and just need to play a bit more in the opponents half and improve discipline a bit. Just like last year they've let two tight games slip narrowly from their grasp. That's the difference between going for title and being also-ran's.

But winning the tight games is a skill of all the champion teams. And it's a skill Ireland don't currently have. That's why I think a change in management, and therefore fresh thinking in terms of tactics and mindset would help Ireland move forward.

Interesting that people say Ireland's backrow is unbalanced and we need a natural 7 yet we have the most turnovers.

We also say that our attack is limited yet we have scored the most points and tries.

We have also got the best tackle rate.

How come we continue to play poorly?
Quality of ball?
Ability to get over the gain line?
Discipline?

Discipline is one. And I'd say poor kicking is keeping us playing in our own half. Neither Sextons kicking from hand nor Murrays box kicks have been good enough for the game we're trying to play.

Our garryowens have been good, especially from the majestic Kearney, but the support for the player retrieving the ball hasn't been good enough. Not sure about our lineout stats, but it does seem to malfunction at exactly the wrong time and puts us on the back foot and back in our own half again.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Interesting that people say Ireland's backrow is unbalanced and we need a natural 7 yet we have the most turnovers.

We also say that our attack is limited yet we have scored the most points and tries.

We have also got the best tackle rate.

How come we continue to play poorly?
Quality of ball?
Ability to get over the gain line?
Discipline?

We're working damn hard for those turnovers and tying up people who might be used more effectively in bull-in-a-china-shop roles.

I always say that in order to excel at one thing you have to pull back something else.
Have we a balance?
Are we making one aspect of our game suffer to bolster up another?

The stats certainly suggest we have the players that shouldn't be lolling at one win, one loss and one draw - but the balance in this side (one priority watering down the effectiveness of another one) is obviously not right just now. Fine tune the priorities and we know it can still be a potent International side.

The refs in the French games should hang their heads. They have been all over the rucks like cheap suits yet have been pinged less than anyone. The last ten in the Scotalnd v France game was a farce from Barnes.

Those turnovers will include the choke tackle which a decent amount of the time isn't involving our back row. A relevant stat would be metres surrendered in unsuccessful choke tackles compared with turnovers won in them

It beggers belief that Ireland look so poor but have some of the best stats in the tournement, it really does.

Whats a very real concern for me, as an Irish fan, going into Saturday is the amount of linebreaks Scotland have made against some very good defensive teams. Ireland will have to watch that on the weekend.

Try looking at these stats "AFTER" Wales and Scotland have played Italy. I mean this as no disrespect to the Italians but I would wager that the stats for Wales and Scotland for turnovers, line breaks, try's scored ect will look a lot better at the end of the tounement.

Nah Lord, Italy are going to turn Wales over and destroy your stats

eirebilly wrote:Nah Lord, Italy are going to turn Wales over and destroy your stats

I am not drunk....... Honest

I'm not convinced Scotland will beat Italy. They are 0 for 3 and despite some good individual performances if Ireland beat them then the pressure will be on in italy

I think that Scotland will beat Italy stand, i would be suprised if they didnt but it will be very close.

I have a feeling that Wales will struggle to beat Italy on the weekend as well. They will of course but i doubt that there will be alot of daylight between them.

Sorry but stats mean sweet FA....

LordDowlais wrote:Try looking at these stats "AFTER" Wales and Scotland have played Italy. I mean this as no disrespect to the Italians but I would wager that the stats for Wales and Scotland for turnovers, line breaks, try's scored ect will look a lot better at the end of the tounement.

Funny though, people (English, Welsh and Scots) didn't mind talking about stats when France and Ireland were still one game down. We had a whole host of them based on the equality of some sides having played three games and some having only played two.

One man (Welsh) apologised to Ireland especially one week because he felt he couldn't even include us in his stats rundown, best player catagories because - "no disrespect to the Italian's and all" - but we had only beaten Italy. Meaning Italy don't count as a 6N game.

Maybe we'll scratch the stats for the Welsh/Italian game next week

Feckless Rogue wrote:Funny how Ireland have the highest number of turnovers, when the line most of us are going along with is that the Irish backrow us unbalanced. Is the number of penalties conceded, worth it for the number of turnovers we're making though?

Cough cough...actually you'll find that a few of us, including myself and young rory have been saying that our backrow is extremely strong and that the argument that it is unbalanced and not performing is media driven nonsense.

The stats vindicate that view somewhat. O'Brien has been very strong on the deck and working his socks off, Ferris has been awesome and as a unit they have been carrying us for the past 12 months.

Where they have been deemed to have been outplayed, its been heavily down to us being on the backfoot for the majority of the game.

The problem is we expect our backrow to be everywhere at once, winning the ball, tackling, scoring tries and carrying. Our expectations of the backrow are too high and our expectations of are other players are too low.

roddersm wrote:

Feckless Rogue wrote:Funny how Ireland have the highest number of turnovers, when the line most of us are going along with is that the Irish backrow us unbalanced. Is the number of penalties conceded, worth it for the number of turnovers we're making though?

Cough cough...actually you'll find that a few of us, including myself and young rory have been saying that our backrow is extremely strong and that the argument that it is unbalanced and not performing is media driven nonsense.

The stats vindicate that view somewhat. O'Brien has been very strong on the deck and working his socks off, Ferris has been awesome and as a unit they have been carrying us for the past 12 months.

Where they have been deemed to have been outplayed, its been heavily down to us being on the backfoot for the majority of the game.

The problem is we expect our backrow to be everywhere at once, winning the ball, tackling, scoring tries and carrying. Our expectations of the backrow are too high and our expectations of are other players are too low.

Cough cough

roddersm wrote:Stats don't pay the bills, Billy...stats don't pay the bills ...

Honestly think refs have been harsh on Ireland. Some of the penalties have been a joke such as the pen on ferris v Wales and the one when Pearson penalised Healy for not releasing for being part of the tackle. Indeed if you review the 11 penalties awarded v France at least 4 or 5 of them were borderline and for "offences" that France regularly got away with.

Sadly getting the rub of the green in rugby is so important it can mean the difference in being 3 wins from 3 or 1 and a half from three especially given that this years tournament is so close.

Declan Kidney in a rare showing of emotion described the penalty count as disgusting. Granted Healy was possibly fortunate too not to get a yellow but for the most part 11-4 in penalties was the killer blow.

Low blow billy! Low blow!

Aahh come on rodders, it was glaring at me. I could'nt resist

Based on those stats:

Wales have tackled like mad and are perfectly happy to concede penalties to prevent tries.

France are the most disciplined side.

Ireland like to steal the ball.

England kick everything.

Scotland's attack is like my sex life lots of effort and movement but no end product.

Italy are crap.

There is only one stat that means anything....

Number of Ws v number of Ls....

... and as Wales currently have all the Ws and no Ls, it put Wales as the best side.

It could change this week, suspect it wont, but who really knows for sure. No amount of games Stats is going to guarantee that.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics )

LondonTiger wrote:Based on those stats:

Wales have tackled like mad and are perfectly happy to concede penalties to prevent tries.

France are the most disciplined side.

Ireland like to steal the ball.

England kick everything.

Scotland's attack is like my sex life lots of effort and movement but no end product.
Italy are crap.

Brilliant, LT

SecretFly wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:Try looking at these stats "AFTER" Wales and Scotland have played Italy. I mean this as no disrespect to the Italians but I would wager that the stats for Wales and Scotland for turnovers, line breaks, try's scored ect will look a lot better at the end of the tounement.

Funny though, people (English, Welsh and Scots) didn't mind talking about stats when France and Ireland were still one game down. We had a whole host of them based on the equality of some sides having played three games and some having only played two.

One man (Welsh) apologised to Ireland especially one week because he felt he couldn't even include us in his stats rundown, best player catagories because - "no disrespect to the Italian's and all" - but we had only beaten Italy. Meaning Italy don't count as a 6N game.

Maybe we'll scratch the stats for the Welsh/Italian game next week

Fly, surprised you say that, haven't noticed any Scots posters using stats in a comparative way when discussing other teams - more than happy to use them for individual comparisons when correctly adjusted or just looking at our own players (often to counter the views of those that hold players as "rubbish" when clearly they are not), but that's about it

eirebilly wrote:

roddersm wrote:

Feckless Rogue wrote:Funny how Ireland have the highest number of turnovers, when the line most of us are going along with is that the Irish backrow us unbalanced. Is the number of penalties conceded, worth it for the number of turnovers we're making though?

Cough cough...actually you'll find that a few of us, including myself and young rory have been saying that our backrow is extremely strong and that the argument that it is unbalanced and not performing is media driven nonsense.

The stats vindicate that view somewhat. O'Brien has been very strong on the deck and working his socks off, Ferris has been awesome and as a unit they have been carrying us for the past 12 months.

Where they have been deemed to have been outplayed, its been heavily down to us being on the backfoot for the majority of the game.

The problem is we expect our backrow to be everywhere at once, winning the ball, tackling, scoring tries and carrying. Our expectations of the backrow are too high and our expectations of are other players are too low.

Cough cough

roddersm wrote:Stats don't pay the bills, Billy...stats don't pay the bills ...

Did a wee bit of analysis last night on the scottish backrow versus ours. Well really loose 5 forwards really.

They do it backwards to us.
Their locks are good carriers and they use their backrow as the clearout.
Our locks are not good carriers and have to use our backrow to clearout and to carry. They are doing both if you look at the games we've played so far. huge workload.

the main crux is this: pace.

Let's say Gray goes into contact makes 2 metres 5 metres from the ruck or so, rennie being a backrow player gets to the ball quickly and secures it and quick ball is provided.

Lets say O'Brien goes into contact and makes the same 2 metres 5 metres from the ruck. O'Connell and O'Callaghan are not going to win the race to the breakdown against any of Rennie, barclay, Denton, Dusatoir, Harinorduoy, Picamoles, Waurburton, Falateau, Lydiate, Parrise, Barberie the list goes on and on. Granted we have 2 other backrow players but maybe they were the last carrier or the last one to secure a ruck or maybe they did get there to secure ball but didn't get re-enforced before 2 opposing players double teamed him.

Add that to the fact our backs and to a large degree the rest of our pack are finding it hard to get over the gainline they aren't running onto rucks they are running across to them.

Our backrow are doing huge work, but they are not getting the help they need in either department, carrying or securing ball.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:

eirebilly wrote:

roddersm wrote:

Feckless Rogue wrote:Funny how Ireland have the highest number of turnovers, when the line most of us are going along with is that the Irish backrow us unbalanced. Is the number of penalties conceded, worth it for the number of turnovers we're making though?

Cough cough...actually you'll find that a few of us, including myself and young rory have been saying that our backrow is extremely strong and that the argument that it is unbalanced and not performing is media driven nonsense.

The stats vindicate that view somewhat. O'Brien has been very strong on the deck and working his socks off, Ferris has been awesome and as a unit they have been carrying us for the past 12 months.

Where they have been deemed to have been outplayed, its been heavily down to us being on the backfoot for the majority of the game.

The problem is we expect our backrow to be everywhere at once, winning the ball, tackling, scoring tries and carrying. Our expectations of the backrow are too high and our expectations of are other players are too low.

Cough cough

roddersm wrote:Stats don't pay the bills, Billy...stats don't pay the bills ...

Did a wee bit of analysis last night on the scottish backrow versus ours. Well really loose 5 forwards really.

They do it backwards to us.
Their locks are good carriers and they use their backrow as the clearout.
Our locks are not good carriers and have to use our backrow to clearout and to carry. They are doing both if you look at the games we've played so far. huge workload.

the main crux is this: pace.

Let's say Gray goes into contact makes 2 metres 5 metres from the ruck or so, rennie being a backrow player gets to the ball quickly and secures it and quick ball is provided.

Lets say O'Brien goes into contact and makes the same 2 metres 5 metres from the ruck. O'Connell and O'Callaghan are not going to win the race to the breakdown against any of Rennie, barclay, Denton, Dusatoir, Harinorduoy, Picamoles, Waurburton, Falateau, Lydiate, Parrise, Barberie the list goes on and on. Granted we have 2 other backrow players but maybe they were the last carrier or the last one to secure a ruck or maybe they did get there to secure ball but didn't get re-enforced before 2 opposing players double teamed him.

Add that to the fact our backs and to a large degree the rest of our pack are finding it hard to get over the gainline they aren't running onto rucks they are running across to them.

Our backrow are doing huge work, but they are not getting the help they need in either department, carrying or securing ball.

pete, or maybe they're hanging out on the wing like Heaslip

Seriously, I'm surprised that our boiler room are more prolific carriers than our backrow - Gray certainly carries more than his fair share, but after that I'd have said Denton and Rennie would be our next two best carriers, and Ford after that - just a guess, could well be wrong - I'll wait for the stats to disprove me!!

Ford is another good one too and yes you're backrow carry but they aren't the only ones who get gain line success and that is a huge deal IMO.

Heaslip has been much better than people give him credit for, he was one of our better players in the pack against Wales and is one of our few players who can make yards with out team momentum.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

SecretFly wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:Try looking at these stats "AFTER" Wales and Scotland have played Italy. I mean this as no disrespect to the Italians but I would wager that the stats for Wales and Scotland for turnovers, line breaks, try's scored ect will look a lot better at the end of the tounement.

Funny though, people (English, Welsh and Scots) didn't mind talking about stats when France and Ireland were still one game down. We had a whole host of them based on the equality of some sides having played three games and some having only played two.

One man (Welsh) apologised to Ireland especially one week because he felt he couldn't even include us in his stats rundown, best player catagories because - "no disrespect to the Italian's and all" - but we had only beaten Italy. Meaning Italy don't count as a 6N game.

Maybe we'll scratch the stats for the Welsh/Italian game next week

Fly, surprised you say that, haven't noticed any Scots posters using stats in a comparative way when discussing other teams - more than happy to use them for individual comparisons when correctly adjusted or just looking at our own players (often to counter the views of those that hold players as "rubbish" when clearly they are not), but that's about it

My point was that now that we've all caught up on each other (gamewise) and a more acurate assessment of stats or player grading might be had, some people are now suggesting that the equal platform of three games apiece isn't equal at all - and that we must wait for Wales and Scotland to play Italy before we can accept the stats Ireland took from their Italy game.

I was saying that's a little arrogant to express suce an opinion given that I saw quite a number of threads up in recent weeks quite happy to talk stats and quite content to remove Irish players from those discussions on the very fact that they had only played Italy...the implication being that the stats on that particular game didn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. This was said to me, I'm not making it up.

Oh look at that.. Top turnovers made by a team goes to Ireland..

Why don't we just stick to Ferris-SOB as our flankers eh?

Good article Maes - some interesting reading...

maes, great stuff, clearly presented - looking forward to seeing them again at the end of the tournament

An interpretation of the high tackle & penalty count for Wales could be the high speed blitz defence presided over by Shaun Edwards who did the same at Wasps.
Players get out of the blocks quickly to stifle possession but this is reliant on fit players which obviously Wasps had & Wales have.
High penalty count I would say is down to either mistiming this blitz (offside) or transgressing at the breakdown.
The trick is to only do it where it doesn't hurt you.

"Fewest tries conceded: Wales - 3"

Of course that doesn't include two that were scored but not awarded.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Sorry but stats mean sweet FA....

Some do but I thought these reflected a lot of what we are seeing mid way through the championship.

They either 'do' or the 'don't'... I would have thought.

miteyironpaw wrote:"Fewest tries conceded: Wales - 3"

Of course that doesn't include two that were scored but not awarded.

becuase as they were not awarded they weren't ....wait for it.....scored. Mitey you're an intelligent bloke (most of the time anways ). Didn't think that would be too difficult for you to understand

Come on though dreamer, Hogg quite clearly scored a legitimate try. Strettle's I think was a try too, though it wasn't as clear.

I'm not trying to rain on Wale's parade or anything, but I do think both of those tries could and should have been given. Apart from that, Wales have had a very good defence. Will be interesting to see how they defend against France, who are more dangerous in attack than anyone they have played so far.

ah sure Rory, same as Ryan Jones' against Ireland, that could have been given too.

Thing is, none of them are counted, and as has been pointed out, that's the problem with stats

If I recall correctly, you could not see the ball being grounded by Jones, therefore it was inconclusive. Not the same thing.

Scoreboard is what counts. The Hogg try may have changed the shape of the game and Scotland may not have scored again, the Strettle attempt was deemed no try by the TMO so doesnt count.

Simply, Wales 3 try's against. A good showing

Rory_Gallagher wrote:If I recall correctly, you could not see the ball being grounded by Jones, therefore it was inconclusive. Not the same thing.

Exactly the same as Strettle's then.

Except you could see Strettle ground the ball in all honesty. I think this is more of a Wales vs England thing going on here.