Statistics - first semi

Yet another close affair in the knock-out rounds of the 2007 Rugby World Cup - a gripping match with England taking the lead with just six minutes left. We give some statistics of the match, mostly about getting possession.

Later we shall give some more statistics about using possession when we put the two semi-finals together. We shall also discuss some aspects of the laws.

Sanctionary Cards

Mercifully nobody earned a card of any colour. In fact it was an honourable match.

Penalties conceded

In this section we record the times a team was penalised.

England vs France

Total number of penalties: 15

England: 6

France: 9

France were penalised just once in the first half.

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

* = points conceded

England:

Tackle/ruck: 6 (Easter* 2, Sackey, Stevens, Dallaglio)

Scrum: 1 (Sheridan*)

Discipline: 2 (Undetermined - dissent; Stevens - man without ball)

France:

Tackle/ruck: 3 (Betsen, Marty*, Chabal)

Discipline: 3 (Bonnaire - man without ball; Szarzewski* - high tackle; Chabal - elbow in face)

England missed a penalty kick at goal.

Tackles/Penalties

This gives the number of penalties at ruck/tackle as a fraction of the total number of penalties:

England vs France: 9/15 = 60 per cent

Getting possession - line-outs, scrums, free-kicks, drop-outs, turn-overs

In this section the figures represent the number of times you get to play with the ball.

England vs France

England:

Line-outs: 16 (3 lost, 1 quick)

Scrums: 6 (4 reset, 4 collapses, 1 free kick, 1 penalty)

Free-kicks: 4 (1 scrum, 3 marks)

Drop-outs: 5

France:

Line-outs: 21 (2 lost)

Scrums: 8 (2 reset, 3 collapses)

Free-kicks: 3 (marks)

Drop-outs: 4

Stoppages (total of line-outs, scrums with resets, free kicks, penalties, drop-outs):

England vs France: 88

Tries

This is the number of tries each team scored.

England vs France:

England: 1

France: 0

Tries/penalties scored

This gives the ratio of tries scored to penalties scored by each team:

England: 1/2

France: 0/3

The ratio of tries scored to penalties goaled is 1/5