This week we take a look at attacking statistics after four rounds.
When I’m looking at ways to improve a team’s performance I consider reduction of handling errors is an area that deserves a lot of attention. Better control of the ball improves the amount of possession you have and therefore increases attacking opportunities. The opposing view is that if you’re not making mistakes, you’re probably playing conservatively in attack; something I don’t advocate.
The obvious ideal scenario is to keep attacking while minimising errors. That means improving the basic skills of passing, catching and offloading, and that’s why even the best international teams spend a lot of time practising core skills. Sometimes players see this type of practice as boring or not useful, so it’s the coaches’ job to introduce enough variety into these sessions to keep players interested while still lifting the level of basic skills. Accordingly, most coaches use games to practise these skills, rather than just closed drills using cones. As a friend once said to me, “Do you know what you get good at by practising running around cones? Really good at running around cones!” Of course, these more open game drills need to be balanced with some closed drills to work on technique, progressing eventually to an open drill working against defenders.
One of the ways we can measure how adventurous a team has been in attack is the number of offloads they’re making. A team that is prepared to move the ball around and take some chances will usually have a higher number of offloads than a team that is playing a tight game. Here’s a comparison of the number of offloads teams are making, compared to the number of handing errors made.
For all of the tables, click on the headings for each column if you want to sort the data by that column.
Team Offloads Average Per Game Handling Errors Average Per Game
Blues 43 11 78 20
Brumbies 79 20 107 27
Bulls 18 6 53 18
Cheetahs 32 8 81 20
Chiefs 74 19 120 30
Crusaders 50 17 61 20
Force 31 10 64 21
Highlanders 73 18 106 27
Hurricanes 29 15 43 22
Lions 61 15 83 21
Rebels 43 11 89 22
Reds 35 12 50 17
Sharks 48 12 86 22
Stormers 17 6 59 20
Waratahs 44 15 71 24
It’s then interesting to compare those results to what each team has achieved in terms of metres gained running the ball and the number of line breaks made. It’s striking to see the Reds with the lowest average number of line breaks per game at this stage of the season.
Team Metres Gained Running Average Per Game Line Breaks Average Per Game
Blues 3,639 909 46 11
Brumbies 4,330 1,082 60 15
Bulls 1,989 663 20 6
Cheetahs 2,689 672 24 6
Chiefs 3,765 941 56 14
Crusaders 3,046 1,015 45 15
Force 2,121 707 25 8
Highlanders 3,728 932 44 11
Hurricanes 1,575 787 19 9
Lions 4,257 1,064 45 11
Rebels 2,304 576 30 7
Reds 1,588 529 15 5
Sharks 3,012 753 32 8
Stormers 1,994 664 20 6
Waratahs 2,381 793 30 10
Finally, we can look at the statistics for the number of tries scored and what percentage of points tries represent for each team. The contrast between the percentage of points that tries represent for the Stormers at 9 per cent and the Waratahs at 77 per cent is amazing.
Team Tries Scored Average Per Game Points From Tries As % Of Total Points
Blues 9 2 45%
Brumbies 10 3 57%
Bulls 8 3 52%
Cheetahs 4 1 30%
Chiefs 11 3 57%
Crusaders 11 4 51%
Force 2 1 19%
Highlanders 7 2 45%
Hurricanes 2 1 26%
Lions 11 3 59%
Rebels 6 2 45%
Reds 3 1 26%
Sharks 13 3 53%
Stormers 1 - 9%
Waratahs 14 5 77%
