End of S14 Regular Season Stats

Well, that’s it for another year, with no Aussie teams progressing to the finals, we can start the post mortems.

Below are some stats so you can see how each of teams performed relative to each other and perhaps why they performed so well, or in the case of the Reds, why they were so shit!!!

End of Season Team Stats

Team	Kicks in general play	Penalties Conceded	Offloads	Turnovers	Effective Tackle %	Breakdown Win %	Scrum Win %	Line-out win %	Tries
Bulls	485	81	75	236	82%	92%	91%	86%	37
Chiefs	394	78	122	283	84%	92%	87%	75%	43
Hurricanes	359	87	141	267	85%	93%	93%	74%	49
Crusaders	395	61	124	247	85%	92%	94%	86%	27
Waratahs	411	69	141	215	84%	93%	94%	77%	28
Sharks	407	74	125	250	82%	91%	91%	86%	31
Brumbies	402	68	135	244	85%	91%	88%	83%	36
Western Force	396	85	111	230	87%	92%	92%	84%	42
Blues	317	64	151	269	84%	93%	94%	80%	47
Stormers	427	82	118	248	82%	91%	88%	85%	28
Highlanders	355	77	140	237	86%	93%	91%	78%	32
Lions	349	91	132	243	81%	92%	93%	76%	36
Reds	403	81	156	289	82%	92%	92%	82%	36
Cheetahs	402	87	101	240	83%	91%	87%	84%	26
Average	385	77	131	248	84%	92%	91%	81%	35

 

The Finalists
Well, what a hoax the ELV’s turned out to be. The Bulls kicked more and off-loaded less than any other team in the competition and they come out in front. I guess when you are equal leaders in line-out win %, why not kick, plus when you have the worst turnover/offload ratio in the competition, there isn’t much motivation to keep having a crack now is there.

Based on the stats above, I’m forecasting the Bulls vs Crusaders game this weekend will have around 70 kicks in general play, I won’t be getting up in the middle of the night to watch that one!

Interesting to see the Canes and Chiefs have the lowest line-out win %, not a good sign coming into the finals where bonus points and attacking rugby takes a back seat to possession and grinding out results. This stat takes on even more significance when you look at the other two teams in the finals, one of which the Canes or Chiefs will play next week.

Add to this the pretty ordinary scrum win % of the Chiefs and it is clear that the backs have gotten the Chiefs to the finals rather than the forwards.

I was also surprised to see the amount of turnovers relative to offloads for the Chiefs, I thought they would have been better performed than that, in fact, their ratio is equal with the Cheetahs.

The Canes were equal second in penalties conceded and the Saders conceded the least. In my mind it confirms the long held suspicion that referee’s are scared to penalise Richie even though he is a cheating bastard.

Australian Teams
Just when I was beginning to think the Reds had achieved nothing this season, I was proved wrong as they ended up leading the competition in turnovers conceded – well done boys!! This is a little misleading as they also had more offloads than any other team as well.

The Force were the naughty boys of the Australian teams giving away the most penalties but other than that, when you look at their stats, how the fuck did they miss the finals? They scored 42 tries, had a better than average scrum and line-out, and the best effective tackle % of any team.

The Brumbies’ scrum win % is the poorest of any of the other Australian teams, by a considerable margin in relation to the Tahs. I guess that means we mightn’t see the Brumbies props feature in the Wallabies this year?

The Tahs, well one stat screams from the page, tries scored – absolutely damming. The other surprise was the piss-poor line-out win %, maybe the Tahs missed Vickers and Rocky more than we thought?