ACT Brumbies

2011 Super Rugby Statistics After Round 4

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.

TeamOffloadsAverage Per GameHandling ErrorsAverage Per Game
Blues43117820
Brumbies792010727
Bulls1865318
Cheetahs3288120
Chiefs741912030
Crusaders50176120
Force31106421
Highlanders731810627
Hurricanes29154322
Lions61158321
Rebels43118922
Reds35125017
Sharks48128622
Stormers1765920
Waratahs44157124

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.

TeamMetres Gained RunningAverage Per GameLine BreaksAverage Per Game
Blues3,6399094611
Brumbies4,3301,0826015
Bulls1,989663206
Cheetahs2,689672246
Chiefs3,7659415614
Crusaders3,0461,0154515
Force2,121707258
Highlanders3,7289324411
Hurricanes1,575787199
Lions4,2571,0644511
Rebels2,304576307
Reds1,588529155
Sharks3,012753328
Stormers1,994664206
Waratahs2,3817933010

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.

TeamTries ScoredAverage Per GamePoints From Tries As % Of Total Points
Blues9245%
Brumbies10357%
Bulls8352%
Cheetahs4130%
Chiefs11357%
Crusaders11451%
Force2119%
Highlanders7245%
Hurricanes2126%
Lions11359%
Rebels6245%
Reds3126%
Sharks13353%
Stormers1-9%
Waratahs14577%

ACT Brumbies
@ScottA_

Scott is one of our regular contributors from the old days of G&GR. He has experience coaching Premier Grade with two clubs in Brisbane.

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