Ball in play: November
Jan Taljaard provides us with a record of the time ball is in play during some of the Tests played in Europe during November.
In only one of the matches was the ball in play for more than half the 80 minutes – that was Wales against South Africa with Steve Walsh to referee it.
The third longest the ball was in play was Wales against Fiji, that drawn match with Jérôme Graces to referee it. Both of Wales’s other two ,matches were also above average which is somewhere around the 34 minutes’ mark. There must be something about the Welsh way of playing.
The match with the ball in play second longest was France vs Argentina refereed by Jonathan Kaplan in Montpellier.
The match with the lowest playing time was France against Fiji in Nantes, which Andrew Small refereed. The match between Scotland and South Africa in the pouring Edinburgh rain produced over five minutes more ball-in-play time. The next lowest of the matches we have here was between the two pick-up teams – Barbarians and Springboks.
The times are as follows with referee in brackets):
Week 1
England vs New Zealand: 18 mins 22 secs + 16 mins 26 secs = 34 mins 48 secs (Romain Poite)
Ireland vs South Africa: 14 mins 52 secs + 18 mins 46 secs = 33 mins 36 secs (Wayne Barnes)
Wales vs Australia: 18 mins 3 secs + 18 mins 19 secs = 36 mins 22 secs (Nigel Owens)
Week 2
Wales vs South Africa: 18 mins 35 secs + 22 mins 41 secs = 41 mins 16 secs (Steve Walsh)
England vs Australia: 15 mins 53 secs + 21 mins 17 secs = 37 mins 10 secs (Craig Joubert)
Scotland vs New Zealand: 16 mins 58 secs + 17 mins 14 secs = 34 mins 12 secs (Dave Pearson)
Ireland vs Samoa: 15 mins 8 secs + 15 mins 14 secs = 30 mins 22 secs (Keith Brown)
France vs Fiji: 13 mins 20 secs + 15 mins 43 secs = 29 mins 3 secs (Andrew Small)
Week 3
Wales vs Fiji: 18 mins 39 secs + 19 mins 34 secs = 38 mins 13 secs (Jérôme Garces)
Scotland vs South Africa: 17 mins 40 secs + 16 mins 42 secs = 34 mins 22 secs (Stuart Dickinson)
England vs Samoa: 15 mins 52 secs + 18 mins 01 = 33 mins 53 secs (Peter Fitzgibbon)
Ireland vs New Zealand: 17 mins 54 secs + 17 mins 35 secs = 35 mins 29 secs (Marius Jonker)
France vs Argentina: 17 mins 16 secs + 21 mins 11 secs = 38 mins 27 secs (Jonathan Kaplan)
Week 4
England vs South Africa: 15 mins 59 secs + 20 mins 43 secs = 36 mins 42 secs (George Clancy)
Ireland vs Argentina: 14 mins 07 secs + 19 mins 37 secs = 33 mins 44 secs (Mark Lawrence)
Wales vs New Zealand: 16 mins 13 secs + 18 mins 4 secs = 34 mins 17 secs (Alan Lewis)
France vs Australia: 15 mins 21 secs + 16 mins 39 secs = 32 mins 0 secs (Bryce Lawrence)
Additional match
Barbarians vs Springboks: 16 mins 10 secs + 15 mins 41 secs = 31 mins 51 secs (Pascal Gauzere)
