Statistics: Tri-Nations, Round Seven

South Africa, comfortable winners of the Tri-Nations last year, won their first Tri-Nations this year. They and Australia have a win each and so are in competition for the wooden spoon. The match in Pretoria started at a hectic rate with five tries in 11 minutes. We give some statistics from the matches.

South Africa won 44-31. It was their fourth match and the fourth time they had an Irish referee and the first time they did not complain of him. Maybe winning has an effect on referee evaluation. Last week the All Blacks played at altitude, ended stronger than the Springboks, won and at no time did anybody mention altitude. This time the Wallabies lost and there was talk – not from their camp, to be fair – of altitude. Perhaps winning and losing make a difference to height above sea level.

Most of the statistics concern getting possession. Later we shall have statistics of using possession.

There are interesting statistics about tries per match, stoppages per match and the time the ball is in hand for each match. Less does not always equal more!

Sanctions

Sanctionary Cards

There were again no cards this week and no citings. In fact nobody was even remotely a candidate for either sanction.

Penalties conceded

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

South Africa vs Australia

Total number of penalties: 14

South Africa: 8
Australia: 6

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

* = points conceded

South Africa:
Tackle/ruck/maul: 6 (Du Plessis, Steenkamp 2, Morné Steyn, De Villiers, Ralepelle)
Scrum: 1 (Steenkamp)
Discipline: 1 (Morné Steyn* – high tackle)

Australia:
Tackle/ruck/maul: 5 (Faingaa* 2, Ashley-Cooper* 2, Giteau)
Discipline: 1 (Faingaa* – high tackle)

Australia 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: 11/14 – 79%

Getting possession – line-outs, scrums, free-kicks, drop-outs

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

South Africa:
Line-outs: 9 (1 lost, 1 reset, 1 quick, 1 free kick)
Scrums: 12 (4 resets, 3 collapses, 1 free kick)
Free-kicks: 2 (1 scrum, 1 line-out)
Drop-outs: 1

Australia:
Line-outs: 17 (4 lost, 3 quick, 1 reset)
Scrums: 8 (2 resets, 2 collapses, 1 free kick, 1 penalty)
Free-kicks: 2 (1 scrum, 1 mark)
Drop-outs: 0

Stoppages (total of line-outs, scrums with resets, free kicks, penalties, drop-outs): 74

Scoring

Tries

This is the number of tries each team scored.

South Africa: 5 (Smith, Steenkamp, Spies, François Steyn, Pietersen)
Australia: 4 (Genia, O’Connor 2, Mumm)

Tries/penalties scored

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

South Africa: 5/2
Australia: 4/1

The ratio of tries scored to penalties goaled is 9/3

Some Totals in the 2010 Tri-Nations

Penalties conceded per country

Australia: 7 + 11 + 6 + 6 = 30
New Zealand: 12 + 9 + 13 + 1 = 45
South Africa: 5 + 9 + 10 + 8 = 32

Tries scored per country

Australia: 2 + 3 + 1 + 4 = 10
New Zealand: 4 + 4 + 7 + 2 = 17
South Africa: 0 + 2 + 2 + 5 = 9

Tries per match

New Zealand vs South Africa: 4 + 0 = 4
New Zealand vs South Africa: 4 + 2 = 6
Australia vs South Africa: 2 + 2 = 4
Australia vs New Zealand: 3 + 7 = 10
New Zealand vs Australia: 2 + 1 = 3
South Africa vs New Zealand: 1 + 3 = 4
South Africa vs Australia: 5 + 4 = 9

Stoppages per match

New Zealand vs South Africa: 63
New Zealand vs South Africa: 58
Australia vs South Africa: 53
Australia vs New Zealand: 59
New Zealand vs Australia: 69
South Africa vs New Zealand: 56
South Africa vs Australia: 72

Ball-in-hand time (first half + second half = total):

New Zealand vs South Africa: 18 minutes 52 seconds + 20 minutes 15 seconds = 39 minutes 7 seconds
New Zealand vs South Africa: 17 minutes 34 seconds + 20 minutes 05 seconds = 37 minutes 39 seconds
Australia vs South Africa: 18 minutes 17 seconds + 19 minutes 20 seconds = 37 minutes 37 seconds
Australia vs New Zealand: 13 minutes 15 seconds + 19 minutes 50 seconds = 33 minutes 5 seconds
New Zealand vs Australia: 18 minutes 1 second + 20 minutes 10 seconds = 38 minutes 11 seconds
South Africa vs New Zealand: 16 minutes 42 seconds + 18 minutes 26 seconds = 35 minutes 8 seconds
South Africa vs Australia: 13 minutes 4 seconds + 16 minutes 53 seconds = 29 minutes 57 seconds

Recipients of yellow cards in Tri-Nations so far

Bakkies Botha (South Africa) – tackle infringement
Danie Rossouw (South Africa) – kick
Jaque Fourie (South Africa – dangerous tackle
Quade Cooper (Australia) – dangerous tackle
BJ Botha (South Africa – tackle infringement
Own Franks (New Zealand) – armless tackle
Drew Mitchell (Australia) – armless, late tackle
Drew Mitchell (Australia) – preventing a quick throw-in by slapping the ball out of an opponent’s hand.

Cited and Suspended in Tri-Nations so far

Bakkies Botha (South Africa) for a headbutt – suspended for nine weeks
Jean de Villiers (South Africa) for a tip tackle – suspended for two weeks
Jaque Fourie (South Africa for a dangerous tackle – suspended for four weeks
Quade Cooper (Australia) for a dangerous tackle – suspended for two weeks

Disciplinary sanctions per country

Australia: 4Y, C
New Zealand: Y
South Africa: 4Y, 3 C

Y = yellow card
C = citing and suspension