2011 Super Rugby Statistics After Round 4

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%