Stats: June Tests, Week 2

We give some statistics from four Test matches - New Zealand vs England, Australia vs Ireland, South Africa vs Wales and Argentina vs Scotland.

Graeme Henry complained about England scrumming, that they fell down too easily. The stats suggest that he may well have had a point.

There are four interesting scrum stats in the Buenos Aires match - heels against the head. That will set all ancient hookers dancing jigs. Great days are not over.

We shall do the same for the seven Super 14 matches.

Sanctions

There were three yellow cards - Andy Sheridan and Mike Tindall of England for infringements at the tackle and Felipe Contepomi of Argentina for carrying on an argument.

Yellow cards in June so far:

CJ van der Linde (South Africa) - fighting
Richard Hibbard (Wales - fighting
Andy Sheridan (England) - tackle infringement
Mike Tindall (England) - tackle infringement
Felipe Contepomi (Argentina) - fighting

Penalties conceded

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

* = points conceded

(i) New Zealand vs England

Total number of penalties:  20

New Zealand:  6
England:  14

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

New Zealand:

Tackle/ruck: 6 (McCaw* 3, Somerville* 2, Ellis)

England:

Tackle/ruck: 10 (Palmer, Rees, Narraway*, Wigglesworth, Sheridan*, Mears, Noon, Kay, Borthwick 2)
Off-side: 2 (Rees*, Brown)
Discipline: 2 (Borthwick - air tackle; Tindall - man without ball)

England missed two penalty kicks at goal.

(ii) Australia vs Ireland

Total number of penalties: 15

Australia: 9
Ireland: 6

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

Australia:

Tackle/ruck: 9 (Hynes, Elsom, Smith 2, Horwill 2, Burgess, Robinson, Waugh)

Ireland:

Tackle/Ruck: 3 (Best, Leamy*, O'Callaghan)
Off-side: 2 (Ferris 2)
Scrum: 1 (Hayes)

Neither side missed a penalty kick at goal.

(iii) South Africa vs Wales

Total number of penalties: 22

South Africa: 10
Wales: 12

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

South Africa:

Tackle/ruck: 9 (Bakkies Botha*, Mtawarira* 2, Januarie, Chavhanga, Habana, BJ Botha, Kankowski, Du Plessis)
Scrum: 1 (BJ Botha)

Wales:

Tackle/ruck: 8 (Shanklin 2, Jonathan Thomas, Roberts* 2, Jenkins 2, Dafydd Jones)
Off-side: 1 (Roberts)
Scrum: 2 (Rhys Thomas 2)
Discipline: 1 (Roberts - +10 )

South Africa missed two penalty kicks at goal, Wales two.

(iv) Argentina vs Scotland

Total number of penalties: 25

Argentina: 14
Scotland: 11

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

Argentina:

Tackle/ruck: 6 (Ayerza* 2, Tejeda*, Contepomi 2, Juan Fernandez Lobbe)
Scrum: 2 (Tejeda*, Ayerza)
Off-side: 1 (Ayerza)
Discipline: 5 (Durand - stamping; Durand - +10; Juan Fernandez Lobbe* - fighting; Ayerza - obstruction; Gómez - stamping; Undetermined - dissent)

Scotland:

Tackle/ruck: 6 (Barclay, Southwell, Strokosch, #Webster, Dickinson, Hall)
Off-side: 1 (Paterson)
Discipline: 4 (Webster - high tackle; Ford - punching; Webster - man without ball; Murray - +10 )

Argentina missed two penalty kicks at goal.

Tackles/Penalties

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

New Zealand vs England: 16/20 = 80%
Australia vs Ireland: 12/15 = 80%
South Africa vs Wales: 17/22 = 77%
Argentina vs Scotland: 12/25 = 48%

The first three are high which suggests that the referees are taking the IRB's instruction seriously.

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.

(i) New Zealand vs England

New Zealand:

Line-outs: 20 (5 lost, 2 skew)
Scrums: 7 (1 reset, 1 collapsed, 1 lost)
Free-kicks: 0
Drop-outs: 2

England:

Line-outs: 5
Scrums: 8 (8 reset, 10 collapses, 4 free kicks)
Free-kicks: 5 (1 mark, 4 scrums)
Drop-outs: 0

(ii) Australia vs Ireland

Australia:

Line-outs: 15 (1 lost, 1 quick, 1 penalty)
Scrums: 9 (2 reset)
Free-kicks: 1 (scrum)
Drop-outs: 1

Ireland:

Line-outs: 13 (3 lost, 1 quick)
Scrums: 9 (8 reset, 2 penalties, 1 free kick)
Free-kicks: 2 (marks)
Drop-outs: 1

(iii) South Africa vs Wales

South Africa:

Line-outs: 9
Scrums: 11 (5 reset, 3 collapses, 1 penalty)
Free-kicks: 1 (mark)
Drop-outs: 0

Wales:

Line-outs: 14 (3 lost, 3 skew, 1 free kick)
Scrums: 7 (3 reset, 2 collpses, 1 penalty)
Free-kicks: 1 (line-out)
Drop-outs: 2

(iv) Argentina vs Scotland

Argentina:

Line-outs: 16 (2 lost, 2 free kicks)
Scrums: 7 (3 reset, 1 collapse, 2 lost)
Free-kicks: 2 (line-outs)
Drop-outs: 0

Scotland:

Line-outs: 10 (4 lost, 1 skew)
Scrums: 10 (5 reset, 5 collapses, 1 penalty, 2 lost)
Free-kicks: 0
Drop-outs: 2

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

New Zealand vs England:  76
Australia vs Ireland:  83
South Africa vs Wales:  76
Argentina vs Scotland: 79

Tries

This is the number of tries each team scored.

(i) New Zealand vs England: 6

New Zealand:  4
England: 2

(ii) Australia vs Ireland: 4

Australia:  2
Ireland:  2

(iii) South Africa vs Wales: 6

South Africa:  4
Wales:  2

(iv) Argentina vs Scotland: 4

Argentina:  2
Scotland:  2

Tries/penalties scored

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

South Africa: 4/3
New Zealand: 4/3
Wales: 2/3
Ireland: 2/0
England: 2/2
Australia: 2/2
Argentina: 2/0
Scotland: 2/4