Summer tour match statistics: NZ vs Ireland, OZ vs WALES, SA vs England

There has been much discussion about the performances of each team, so I have been working on this for the past few days, collating all the match statistics per team, it will allow you to look at all the most important statistics for you team, and you can compare it to the oopponent or other teams if you so wish, it does provide some idea as to how teams played as well.

STATISTICS - (I have rounded decimals)

Spoiler:

Stand out statistics.

Dan Carter and New Zealand has the most accurate and effective manner in restarting short and regaining posession from restarts.

Overall the quality of the line outs were good amongst all teams, Bismarck du Plessis was the most inaccurate of the hookers.

Overall Scrums were well contested, only england got penalised early in the first test with 3 free kicks conceded for early engagements.

South Africa, England and Australia were more succesful in getting quick ruck ball.

Will Genia made the most meters, England half backs kicked the most

The combined statistics for Cruden and Carter shows the effectiveness of pivot play for NZ.

South Africa and Australia ran tight more than open as opposed to the other teams who ran more in the open

South Africa on the other hand made the most meters with kick return runs, mostly thanks to Bryan Habana and JP Pietersen.

The Southern Hemisphere opponents all ran more meters per match average than their opponents.

On attack the Southern Hemisphere opponents spent more time in their opponents half.

Defensively it seems all the teams have some work to do.

The statistics were sourced from THIS website, the individual match statistics are available there.

Enjoy.

Only 1 stat there seems odd to me...

How bad must Du Plessis hae been to have out goated Matthew Rees in the lineout?!?!?!

Wasn't Rees's % something like 40% over the 2 tests?!

Interesting that England kept inisisting on kicking short despite their inability to recover the ball. They couldve kicked deep and got the ball straight back for Foden to run instead.

New Zealanders goal kicking poor. As we know its important to keep the scoreboard ticking over. If you dont have a reliable goal kickier you wont win tight games and will have to rely on getting a 60-0 lead.

It dissapoints me that from looking at the stats, England managed to get quick ball however it was what they did with that ball. The kicked far too much of it away when they could have used it to try and break the South African defence.

Also, England have a surprising low number of pick and runs which is maybe what they need to work on before the Autumn Internationals.

Zander both SA and england utilised the pick and drive very little, but rather ran first channel ball, I suppose they felt it necessary to go around rather than through the front on defence.

biltongbek wrote:Zander both SA and england utilised the pick and drive very little, but rather ran first channel ball, I suppose they felt it necessary to go around rather than through the front on defence.

Good point, both teams had a very physical defence. England may not have wanted to pick and drive when they saw Alberts there, right next to the ruck!

Lot of effort there bill,

Well done.

I don't think anything jumps out that hasn't been picked over by the teams fans already.

To me its apparent actually how similar the stats are. Bar the two all black performances tipping the bar.

We all play a similar way. Just the all blacks are clearly more effective and far more accurate.

I guess modern rugby is ironing out the variables. The only variables are the referees interpretations and that has been well covered a number of times in different threads.

Biltong, thanks.
It confirms one thing I kinda felt, England kicked too much (and wastefully at that). Du Plessis ? And I thought England's line out was poor. My impression was RSA won too many on our throw, but I havn't checked the stats.

maestegmafia wrote:Lot of effort there bill,

Well done.

I don't think anything jumps out that hasn't been picked over by the teams fans already.

To me its apparent actually how similar the stats are. Bar the two all black performances tipping the bar.

We all play a similar way. Just the all blacks are clearly more effective and far more accurate.

I guess modern rugby is ironing out the variables. The only variables are the referees interpretations and that has been well covered a number of times in different threads.

Maes I think those stats do show a lot in terms of style.

Example. Take halfback passes for SA, 75 passes of which 35 went to Morne Steyn, then look at the tight runs for SA, Twice as many as open runs, that suggests to me that we run channel one with our forwards to gain front foot ball, roughly 20% of our rucks are quick, it seems those balls will go wide, but slow ruck ball we stay close.

Australia's statistics reveal much the same, England not as favoured for channel one but still leaning that way, NZ, IRE and Wales have about a 50/50 split between channel one and wide.

However where most teams make more or less 10 meters per open run, Ireland had the least success out wide.

The surprising stat from a SA perspective is how often and how effective our runs from kick returns were, by far the outstanding stat for us, considering we never really did that before.

Another encouraging aspect for SA is their number of phases that went past 10, it shows they are learning patience in attack.

Mich to learn here, in context of course

gregortree wrote:Biltong, thanks.
It confirms one thing I kinda felt, England kicked too much (and wastefully at that). Du Plessis ? And I thought England's line out was poor. My impression was RSA won too many on our throw, but I havn't checked the stats.

Gregor you may have lost more line outs per average game, but Bismarck was the least accurate.

The stats point to what was effective against who, I'm not sure a teams tactics are as robotic as we lead each other to believe. A certain amount of the modern game is still instinctive.

Though I agree that when defences cause options to close players revert to form.

It was a good tactic to attack England in the flyhalf channel, it was obvious for the Aussies to target the welsh line out and breakdown.

Wales Australia and NZ were always more likely to play 50/50 close /wide games.

That's what you would expect, yet Oz played more in line with our game, more conservative, perhaps due to their missing players?

biltongbek wrote:That's what you would expect, yet Oz played more in line with our game, more conservative, perhaps due to their missing players?

Direct centres similar to SA. Less creative backline but they were also up against a very good penalty kicker and a tight defence.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:
New Zealanders goal kicking poor. As we know its important to keep the scoreboard ticking over. If you dont have a reliable goal kickier you wont win tight games and will have to rely on getting a 60-0 lead.

Huh Pete?
We missed 4 from 11 that test using 3 kickers.
Cruden (in Carters absence) missed one as the main kicker. Dagg (who has not goalkicked ALL year at any level) missed the sideline conversion (just) as Cruden was being replaced. Barretts 2 misses both hit the post (although they werent particularly difficult).

So put in context hardly worth raising surely? Yet SA were 50% for the series with (supposedly) THE best kicker)...please...


Actually, seeing it on my bigger pc...I get the humour now...
Very good Pete.

South Africa, England and Australia were more succesful in getting quick ruck ball.

Well thats a monstrous turnaround from being one of the slowest and most ponderous.

Will Genia made the most meters, England half backs kicked the most

Both totally unsurprising, and concerning that for once we have a pack producing quick ball that all the England fans have been craving...and its kicked away everytime.
I blame the Youngs / Farrell combo for that! I cant imagine the Youngs / Flood combo kicking as much....

The most interesting stat for me was the little quick ruck ball the ABs were getting.
This probably was due to the good work by SOB.
Just imagine what we could do if we got more quick ball.

Since this is over 3 matches,Scrum work in Progress Mike Cron will fix it.
Line out immaculate none lost in any match
Breakdown area work in progress probably due to combo changes in loose forwards due to injuries,not committing numbers to ball fixed 3rd test.
Results 3 wins 1 streaky could do better
Goal kicking Dan Carter immaculate only two misses one outside his range,drops so/ so.Others need more work
Discipline to many penalties needs sorting.
Handling average needs more work.
New players overall good,7 looks ok with Cane and Todd in reserve.Locks [4]Romano looks the business ,Retalick looks useful,possibly Hoerta gets a run
Backs ,Scrum half fixed ,10 fixed[ if they stay fit]12 possible problem if SBW is away.Nonu starting no prpblem,backups available but not yet.
Wings work in progress Savea needs work under high ball,
Full backs need back up for Dagg
Potential problem Conrad Smith the GUVNOR but no replacement in his class Kahui sadly is a walking sick note.Toeva ditto not convinced by him.
Defence excellent only 2 tries conceded.
Captaincy excellent from RM but replacement could be a problem
Coaching team promising but wait and see.
Upside New players introduced more or less successfully,and with players
coming back hopefully will stay IRB No 1 side and not suffer post RCW jitters.
Downside to many spilled balls,inaccurracy in the ruck area,too many injuries.
All Blacks 75% could do better!!!

Nganboy the slower ruck ball we had was probably negated by Smith's bullet pass. So I'd imagine the 10s had a similar amount of time/space to work with.

Handling errors were the biggest problem for NZ I feel. Lineout did better than expected, scrum did worse. Think Woodcock isn't operating at the level he was a few years ago scrummaging wise. Ben Franks isn't consistent and worries me a bit.

Stats are pretty similar across the board so when juxtaposed with the scorelines it's encouraging to see how ruthless we are within sight of the line.

For anyone who's screen (like mine) chops off the Irish stats in Biltong's spoiler, click here: https://i.servimg.com/u/f42/16/82/61/59/summer10.jpg

Thanks kiwi, it is too complicated and takes too long to submit an excell sheet on here, just easier to make a spoiler.

One Point does the 2 Props bench ONLY apply to the NH test sides if so presumably it won`t apply when playing SH.sides.The obvious points here Woodcock/Mealamu have had recent injuries which effect the Scrum.Injuries to Read,Vito,and Thomson at various times meant adjustments during a match.
McCaw is not a specialist 8 nor heavy as 8`s go.the Scrum is an 8 man thing with Thorn a great Grunt Lock gone there is obviously going to be some adjustments.Todd Blackadder is quite happy to start Ben Franks with Crockett for the Crusaders[THE best Scrum in NZ rugby].Owen has been out of sorts BUT was on the money in the 3rd test.Mike Cron is THE best in the business SHE¬LL BE RIGHT!!!

I wish the IRB would ether make the 23 man squad law or not, some competitions its 22 others 23.

Just make it the same across the board,

disneychilly wrote:Nganboy the slower ruck ball we had was probably negated by Smith's bullet pass. So I'd imagine the 10s had a similar amount of time/space to work with.

Handling errors were the biggest problem for NZ I feel. Lineout did better than expected, scrum did worse. Think Woodcock isn't operating at the level he was a few years ago scrummaging wise. Ben Franks isn't consistent and worries me a bit.

Stats are pretty similar across the board so when juxtaposed with the scorelines it's encouraging to see how ruthless we are within sight of the line.

1st Test you didn't need quick ball because our kicking game and crap chase meant you scored easily through counter attacks.

The 2nd Test showed why you need quick ball as we didn't kick badly and our defense was up quickly and put NZ under pressure.

In the 3rd Test you didn't got quick ball as our defense was so passive that it was impossible for anyone to slow things down and then the massacre occurred.