How's your Team doing ten years on?

As a by the by following the Autumn Internationals, I noticed that rugby had passed its 20th anniversary of professionalism as the Autumn internationals got underway.  [Edit: nope, I'm wrong, it was the 19th anniversary]

There's plenty of arguments in what has changed, both good and bad, in that time, and how the pro-game has benefited teams, players and fans alike.

I had worked out a little table of comparisons for the various teams from NH and SH of how they had performed in a recent debate about SHvNH dominance.
In the light of the (19th )anniversary, I thought it would be worthwhile updating and including all of the main top teams playing rugby around the world.  

New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, England, Australia, France, Wales, Scotland and Argentina.

Since a collective NH team never actually plays a collective SH in a rugby match, I thought a better assessment was of individual team's performance against each other.   Some of the stats are unsurprising - dominance of New Zealand, the very poor away records for the NH teams down south, etc.   Some are more interesting in how a team that historically held a strong winning record against another has seen that change in the era of professionalism.

The table below sets out the various teams who have overall win records over other teams - every one of the nine has at least one.     New Zealand is at the top with the full deck of 8/8 against opposition teams, South Africa next, and then Australia, England, Wales and France.  Scotland, Argentina and Ireland have to console themselves with just one superior record each.  Not surprisingly, they're against each other - Scotland over Ireland, Argentina over Scotland, and Ireland over Argentina.

I've also set out a comparison of overall success record against the last ten years of professionalism - from 1 Jan 2005 - 1 Dec 2014.   Have the superior teams continued their dominance, increased it, decreased or even fallen behind?     8 of the teams have endured setbacks.  One team continued and increased their dominance against all their rivals in the last ten years and are even further ahead - no prizes for guessing who.

Has the gap narrowed between some teams?   The stats will tell you yes in some cases - although it won't provide for any of the extenuating circumstances that might be put forward as a reason - home games, weakened teams, injury, illness, the dog ate my homework, etc, etc.

Some head to head records have just a sliver between the two - most notably England and Wales.  Each has had their period of dominance in the past, but at the moment, England just edge it overall, with Wales more dominant in the last decade.   Australia and South Africa have slugged it out 29 times in the last decade, with Australia just ahead 15-14.  The Boks can continue to smile though as they hold the overall superior record.  

Ireland are the current 6N champs, won an away series in Argentina and just knocked off Australia and South Africa in the Autumn.   Yet they only have a superior record against Argentina 15-10.  Some teams have played each other only a few times in the last decade so not much significance may be attached to these e.g. Scotland and Australia, but the record shows its 2-2 in that time.  

The highly mercurial French are still hampered by their late introduction to the then 5 nations, but have already a superior overall record on three of the teams - England and Wales continue to hold the upper hand - just.   Their record against SH teams varies wildly.  Having dispatched Australia, their most recent match against Argentina saw the Pumas turn them over again.   They've played and won in New Zealand - not too many teams can say this.   And their record against South Africa, particularly in South Africa, stands up well to scrutiny.

Some Boks fans think it's a conspiracy that Ireland haven't played in South Africa in the last years.  And that's the only reason that Ireland manage to have such a healthy improvement in overall results against them. The Boks have an overall 75% success record over the Irish, but in the last ten years, that's fallen to 40%.  

England's record versus Australia has always been relatively close - 60% in the Wallabies' favour.  In the last ten years, it's now 6-6.  Nicely set up for the next time they may meet in RWC 2015.

Lastly, it's interesting to look at the amount of games each side has played against the other eight in total over the last decade. Australia has 117 games, with 58 wins, (49.57%), whilst New Zealand has played one game less - 116 with 99 wins (85.34%). SA have 106 games, 64 wins (60.38%). France are next highest success with 92 games, 45 wins (48.91%).

The order is NZ (85%), SA (60%), Aus (50%), Fra (49%), Eng (42%), Irl (41%), Wal (37%), Arg (29%) and Sco (18%).

If you take New Zealand out of the picture, the picture looks a little rosier for the chasing pack, but not much:
SA (68%), Aus (63%), Fra (55%), Irl (48%), Eng (47%), Wal (41%), Arg (33%), and Sco (20%).

That's enough commentary from me.  Apologies for the length of the article.   Hopefully the table appears correctly.   Comments/criticisms welcome.  

Hey, that makes for really interesting reading. I'm a stats man. I know they dont tell the whole picture (e.g. They don't account for Wales' moral victories ) but I think they're great for comparison and debate.

I'm struggling to see your table though - when I try to open it, it comes up as a 127x180 pixel picture so it's hard to zoom in to see anything. Sorry!

But to answer the question for my own nation - since professionalism I feel that we've always been playing catch up. We got some major beatings at the turn of professionalism as we were only professional by name. I think that is the main thing that Gatland has brought in - a real professional environment. I know he has his knockers, but I think he's dragged us up to the professional standards and environment that others at the top operate in. Not necessarily the skill level yet, but I think the environment will help to develop this over time. So I think we've caught up to a certain extent but we (and all teams) need to evole and continue to develop to  maintain that position. I worry that we're now starting to stagnate slightly with Gatland. 6N and WC will give a good reflection of this from Wales point of view.

The problem is the regions are lagging a bit behind and playing catch up still with other european and SH club sides. The regional debacle has sort of kept us in a mini time warp where we've stood still while everyone else has grown and developed during professionalism. I remember Leinster being relatively small and unsuccessful with small crowds when I visited in 2001, but the growth now compared to what has happened to the clubs/regions in wales is so stark. The likes of Glasgow are seeing similar growth and success, but I just don't see that happening in Wales. Hopefully the new WRU agreement will help to move the regions on, but I'm not holding my breath.

So in the last 10 years, Ireland is
3-2 against the Boks
3-5-1 against Oz
6-5 against England
6-5 against Wales
2-9-2 against France
5-3 against Argentina
8-4 against Scotland
0-11 against NZ

So the classic line that NZ are dominant, France are our bogey team still rings true over the last 10 years. Also Oz have the edge on us.  But in the last 10 years Ireland has a winning record against the rest.  In the 6Ns especially, this tended to mean we would be second place but unfortunately each year one of England/France/Wales would hit better form in each of those years.

Pot Hale wrote:As a by the by following the Autumn Internationals, I noticed that rugby had passed its 20th anniversary of professionalism as the Autumn internationals got underway.

Really? I could have sworn the game went officially pro in the Autumn of 95

LondonTiger wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:As a by the by following the Autumn Internationals, I noticed that rugby had passed its 20th anniversary of professionalism as the Autumn internationals got underway.

Really? I could have sworn the game went officially pro in the Autumn of 95

B*gger - you're right. Oh well.

Griff wrote:Hey, that makes for really interesting reading. I'm a stats man. I know they dont tell the whole picture (e.g. They don't account for Wales' moral victories ) but I think they're great for comparison and debate.

I'm struggling to see your table though - when I try to open it, it comes up as a 127x180 pixel picture so it's hard to zoom in to see anything. Sorry!

Thanks Griff - apologies on the image - hope you can see it more clearly now.

Very good thread, Pot.

There are three factors which guide success over this last decade - (a) player numbers, (b) talent of the very top of the national game and (c) the professional structure through which players develop.

Scotland's numbers prove that as we are always going to fall behind in (a) and potentially also (b), then we always needed to up the ante in  (c). Sadly, it is as plain as a Kazakstan pin-up that Scotland made a complete horlicks of structuring the professional game (clearly the worst of any of the home nationals) and indeed may never now fully make up the deficit. That, coupled with the mediocrity of Scotland's backline over the past 10 years and it's been slim pickings for us long suffering fans.

Comparing test results against different nations is always interesting, particularly as we traditionally need to sit through a volley of snide comments by a lot of other posters on these boards (I won't state the predominant nationality of these posters) about how abject the national side has been.

Over the past 10 years, we have conjured up:
- 2 victories over the Springboks
- 2 victories over the Wallabies
- 5 victories over the Pumas

Better than the 6 Nations form would suggest (although only a little).

The future, thankfully, is a hundred times brighter with this current crop of players.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:So in the last 10 years, Ireland is
3-2 against the Boks
3-5 against Oz
6-5 against England
6-5 against Wales
2-9-2 against France
5-3 against Argentina
8-4 against Scotland
0-11 against NZ

So the classic line that NZ are dominant, France are our bogey team still rings true over the last 10 years. Also Oz have the edge on us.  But in the last 10 years Ireland has a winning record against the rest.  In the 6Ns especially, this tended to mean we would be second place but unfortunately each year one of England/France/Wales would hit better form in each of those years.

I think this is something we don't get enough credit for - but I suppose history remembers 6N titles more than one off test victories and unfortunately the RWC performances just haven't been anywhere near good enough. This makes frustrating reading to be honest.

The 0-11 vs NZ looks grim but I think most teams records against the ABs over the past decade won't be too positive looking. How many more 6N titles would we have bagged but for our inferiority complex against the French... I'd say 1 maybe 2....

Happy with NZ's achievements bar one game...

disneychilly wrote:Happy with NZ's achievements bar one game...

I agree, you should have let us win last November.

Bugger that Rodders I was there. When you do knock us over I'd like to be as far away as possible!

Well being brutally honest Scotland have achieved bugger all in the last 10 years.

Yes we have had some one off big wins, but in the 6N - our bread and butter tournament - we have been awful.

Leading up to 10 years ago we actually managed to get 2 wins in every 6N from 2000-2003.  However, after then we have only managed 2 wins once, and managed 3 wins once.  Every other 6N has been 1 win or fewer.

Fairly grim reading.  

As for world cups, well we qualified for the QF in 2003 (just) & 2007 and didn't in 2011. Not much to write home about here.

So it has been a decade to forget for Scotland, but hopefully we won't be saying that in 10 years time.  No one in Scotland is expecting us to go on to be a world beating team, but if we can consistently get 2-3 wins in the 6N, maybe even at least have a chance going into the final two games on the odd occasion, and more regularly be competitive against the SH teams we can probably count the decade as a success.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:So in the last 10 years, Ireland is
3-2 against the Boks
3-5 against Oz
6-5 against England
6-5 against Wales
2-9-2 against France
5-3 against Argentina
8-4 against Scotland
0-11 against NZ

So the classic line that NZ are dominant, France are our bogey team still rings true over the last 10 years. Also Oz have the edge on us.  But in the last 10 years Ireland has a winning record against the rest.  In the 6Ns especially, this tended to mean we would be second place but unfortunately each year one of England/France/Wales would hit better form in each of those years.

The record against Australia is actually 3-5-1. You'd have to go back to the sixties/seventies to improve on that - Ireland even won games in Australia at that point!
So whatever about the number of wins, the trend in more recent years has shown Australia not winning as many matches as historically they have done. They've won 5 out of 9 - 55% compared to 6 out of 7 in the previous ten years to that ('95-'04) - 86% success. Or compared to 21/32 in total - 65%.

In pure head-to-heads, Ireland have disimproved against France and also marginally against Argentina. It'll be interesting to see if they can improve on that further in the next decade or two, whereby they might improve on their poor overall success records - the closest ones being Scotland (66-58).

I stand corrected Pot, now amended.

France no longer have a lad called Clerc on the field. That alone is worth 3 more victories to Ireland in the next decade.

Argentina's record against most sides will improve in the coming decade with experience in RC getting embedded in the side.

Ireland tended to be a genuine challenge to most sides (bar NZ) but generally over the last decade a side that most teams expected to defeat. This had been based on the historic dross of the previous decades.