Stats: June Tests, Week 3

We give some statistics from two Test matches – New Zealand vs England in Christchurch and South Africa vs Italy in the rain at Newlands.

The penalty count in the New Zealand-England Test was high but it did produce some excellent running rugby.

Sanctions

Mike Tindall of England got his second yellow card in successive weeks and Carlo Del Fava got one for a dangerous tackle which was hard and hurt but did not seem to fall within the definitions of dangerous in the Laws of the Game.

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
Mike Tindall (England) – tackle infringement
Carlo Del Fava (Italy) – dangerous tackle

Penalties conceded

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

* = points conceded

(i) New Zealand vs England

Total number of penalties:  28

New Zealand:  10
England:  18

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

New Zealand:

Tackle/ruck: 6 (Hore, Thomson 2, Boric, So’oialo, MacDonald)
Scrum: 1 (Hore)
Discipline: 3 (Thorn – High tackle; Nonu – + 10; Mealamu – air tackle)

England:

Tackle/ruck: 10 (Tait*, Mears 2, Stevens, Narraway, Haskell 2, Palmer, Tindall, Paice)
Off-side: 3 (Borthwick, Tindall 2)
Scrum: 2 (Payne, Undetermined)
Discipline: 3 (Payne – stamping; Haskell* – +10; Care – +10)

England missed a penalty kick at goal.

(ii) South Africa vs Italy

Total number of penalties: 21

South Africa: 11
Italy: 10

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

South Africa:

Tackle/ruck: 5 (Bobo, Matfield, Watson, Jantjes, Brits)
Off-side: 3 (Watson, Burger, Pienaar)
Scrum: 1 (Van der Linde)
Discipline: 2 (Smith – obstruction; Du Plessis – undetermined)

Italy:

Tackle/Ruck: 5 (Masi, Undetermined, Pratichetti, Del Fava 2)
Off-side: 1 (Nieto)
Scrum: 1 (Rizzo)
Discipline: 3 (Nieto – collapsing maul; Del Fava – dangerous tackle; Sole – dangerous tackle)

Neither side kicked 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:

New Zealand vs England: 16/28 = 57%
South Africa vs Italy: 10/21 = 48%

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: 16 (4 lost, 2 skew, 2 quick, 2 free kicks)
Scrums: 11 (3 collapsed, 2 penalties, 1 free kick)
Free-kicks: 3 (2 line-outs, 1 scrum)
Drop-outs: 3

England:

Line-outs: 9
Scrums: 12 (9 reset, 11 collapses, 1 wheel, 5 free kicks, 1 penalty)
Free-kicks: 6 (1 mark, 5 scrums)
Drop-outs: 0

(ii) South Africa vs Italy

South Africa:

Line-outs: 12
Scrums: 8 (2 reset, 1 collapse, 1 penalty)
Free-kicks: 3 (marks)
Drop-outs: 3

Italy:

Line-outs: 19 (4 lost, 1 skew)
Scrums: 16 (7 reset, 7 collapses, 2 free kicks, 1 lost)
Free-kicks: 2 (scrums)
Drop-outs: 2

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

New Zealand vs England:  97
South Africa vs Italy:  95

Tries

This is the number of tries each team scored.

(i) New Zealand vs England: 7

New Zealand:  5
England: 2

(ii) South Africa vs Italy: 4

South Africa:  4
Italy:  0

Tries/penalties scored

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

South Africa: 4/0
New Zealand: 5/3
Italy: 0/0
England: 2/0