Another Autumn Nations campaign concluded last month. 2 wins, 2 losses, magical Finn Russell, grumpy Gregor Townsend and so on and so on. I’m going to (mostly) leave the thoughts and opinions on Scotland’s performances to others and in a departure from the usual, rather than bang on about props, I’m going to provide a bit of a statistical analysis of the performance of our forward pack as a whole.
First of all, a bit about the methodology used here.
I’m only looking at our forwards to make this manageable.
I’m only looking at the performances of those who started games OR who came on as subs during the first half (Young and Ashman sneak in). So for instance Jack Dempsey’s stats cover the game against Argentina where he started and the game against New Zealand where he replaced Hamish Watson early on but NOT his other appearances off the bench. The reason for this is that the stats for second-half subs are generally all over the place and it saves me from explaining lots of anomalous data points. That’s not to say that said sub stats won’t be worth a look at some point in the future though. I’ve also not included George Turner (35 mins) and Sam Skinner (22 mins) who were both replaced during the first halves of their only starts for the same reason.
The stats themselves are from the Autumn Nations Series site and I’m led to believe from the approximate million ad break inserts voiced by Brian Habana, are provided by Sage. None of this is particularly complex stuff though I’ve calculated some custom metrics (which I’ll explain when they appear) which may or may not be very robust but I think when combined with the eye test feel right in their outcome. We’re also missing breakdown stats and anything to do with the set piece which is criminal because they’re key metrics for forwards, but I couldn’t find them anywhere so there we are!
We’ll have a look at effectiveness when carrying, performance in defence, impactful moments (good and bad!) and do a bit of a conclusion. And of course stats don’t always tell the whole story so that’s always a potential caveat to anything below but hopefully we’ve a sample size large enough to be pretty robust for most of the players even if we know some metres gained are harder work than others etc.
So like Jamie Ritchie pitching into some Argentinian handbags, let’s delve into the stats.
Firstly let’s look at how the big lads upfront got on when carrying the ball.
For this I’ve pulled in minutes played, the number of carries and total metres made, then done a simple calculation on the former two to get carries per 80 minutes. This gives us both an idea of work rate in attack and effectiveness.
A few things strike me here. First of all Richie Gray stood out over his two appearances mostly for his instant impact on our line out but he was pretty useful when he got his hands on the ball too topping the chart for metres per carry. However he was also pretty much our least prolific carrier. Hamish Watson also carried very effectively albeit not as often as we love to see. Ashman comes out of this very well on both metrics and certainly showcased what he looks set to add more of in the future and Schoeman and Jonny Gray both carry very frequently and whilst not high up on the metres made metric undoubtedly deserve credit for making the hard yards so often.
Schoeman in particular carried at a rate of 10 per 80 minutes which is prodigious for a prop. It’s been said that scrummaging in the second row takes twice the effort that it does in the back row, and that scrummaging in the front is more than twice as much hard work again. It’s hard work however you quantify it and Schoeman’s workrate in the carry, on top of the scrum solidity, is a major bonus.
However it’s Jack Dempsey that stands out in a league of his own here in terms of offering himself to take the ball forward, averaging 11 carries per 80 minutes and at just under 6 metres per carry he’s pretty effective as well. Comment section after comment section has talked about the need for a ball carrying no 8 and the above suggests Dempsey is exactly that however I’m also going to mention Matt Fagerson. There aren’t many who carried more often and there aren’t many who carried more effectively and his carrying stats are pretty much unchanged over all four games including his foray at 6 vs Argentina. He was consistently excellent and topped the metres made chart amongst the forwards with 42 against the All Blacks.
One other thing. If I’d have included George Turner here he’d have literally been off the chart in terms of his carries per 80. So whilst he didn’t quite manage enough minutes as a starter to feature he’s still worth a shout out. Massive contribution. Brown played pretty well over his two appearances however he’s not in the same league as Ashman or Turner as a ball carrier.
Our biggest struggles in the carry though seem to come when within 5 metres which these stats don’t capture of course. Schoeman, Ashman and Dempsey are all powerful carriers close in though so we should get better here. My suspicion is that our issue is less power and more the franticness that seems to set in and so frequently saw isolated carriers held up over the line, especially by New Zealand. It’s an area that will surely be identified as a work-on.
Next up we’ll take a look at performance on the opposite side of the ball, any guesses on how Jonny Gray will do here?
For this we’ve got the number of tackles per 80 and tackle success rate.
Now the general criticism I see of the Tandy defence is that the weak spots are out wide. And given our forwards generally aren’t the ones defending out there, this claim bears up pretty strongly with only three players under the 90% mark for tackles completed and a decent clutch all missing none at all.
I don’t think there are any shirker’s here, it’s clear to me that all our forwards put in big shifts defensively and it’s an area of strength for the team.
I’m going to call out Jonny Gray and Watson first of all. Both average over 15 tackles per 80 minutes with unsurprisingly Gray missing none and Watson only missing 2 (is he human after all?). Perhaps more surprising though is Dempsey doing very well here only missing 1 in 20 and racking up those 20 at a rate of just under 15 per 80 minutes. Graft is a feature of recent Scotland backrows and Dempsey has shown a big workrate on both sides of the ball which I’ve no doubt will have endeared him to the coaching team despite him perhaps not having caught the eye as much as he does for Glasgow.
Again though we need to mention Matt Fagerson. He’s averaged 17 tackles per game missing only 4 and he’s maintained that over 300 minutes (only Jamie Ritchie played more with 310). I said consistent earlier but what else can you say here? He’s a machine.
Lastly a quick word for Zander Fagerson and Schoeman who both averaged over 10 tackles per 80 over the four games.
So having looked at attack and defence, perhaps there is a way to mangle the two together to get an idea of overall contribution. (You can skip the next paragraph if you’re bored by maths!).
Of course there is! For this I’ve multiplied carries per 80 by average metres made per carry to get a carry rating. And I’ve multiplied tackles per 80 by success rate to get a tackle rating. I’ve then looked at the averages for each of the players for each metric, weighted them by minutes played and used the difference in both numbers to divide the carry rating (the higher value) to get comparable numbers so the scale will work.
So what does this tell us? Nothing new, Dempsey is out on his own as our most effective carrier and contributed to the defence massively too, Gray and Watson are prominent for their tackling. We’ve already seen all of this but I hope this visualisation really helps demonstrate Matt Fagerson’s impact with and without the ball. This is an industrious group of forwards and he’s excelling. Ashman and Dempsey both carried better however over many less minutes and didn’t score as highly in defence.
You could also draw a conclusion that generally, Scotland players rate higher for their tackling than their carrying. I’d be hesitant to go too far with that given the metrics may or may not be that comparable but I do think there could be something there. I believe (and I think the stats support) that Townsend demands high workrate and high tackle numbers from his forwards as a minimum. I think when you look at the names leading the carrying ratings, namely Dempsey, Ashman, Schoeman and Matt Fagerson these are all either still young and/or relative newcomers to the side and it’s a really promising sign that we may now be seeing players break into the 23 who are very effective ball carriers above and beyond some previous incumbents like Wilson or Brown who may have easily matched their tackle numbers but would not have carried as often or as effectively.
Blah blah blah Matt Fagerson is doing all the boring basics you might say. Fair enough so let’s try and see if we can identify the moments that matter and change the impact of games.
This is lovely and simple and unadjusted for time played just shows us how many of each of these impactful moments each player has contributed. Two defensive metrics (blue) and two more attacking ones (red).
The tight 5 may not stand out here as much but that’s fine because we know they make up for it with their grunt at the set piece. The one exception though has to be Pierre Schoeman, he was prominent in both attack and defence as we’ve already seen but also contributed turnovers, broken tackles and a cheeky offload. Only 5 offloads incidentally across the whole group, clearly Townsend has instructed the forwards to leave the flair to the backs! But if it isn’t clear from everything so far that Schoeman goes above and beyond being just a very solid prop, this should cement it.
Captain Jamie Ritchie does shine here too and indeed carried the majority of the team’s turnover threat whilst Watson and Dempsey both unsurprisingly broke several tackles amongst strong contributions.
Again though Matt Fagerson stands out with 4 broken tackles and a forward leading 5 dominant tackles! Now I’ve often read that he apparently lacks physicality, not only do the stats suggest otherwise but when I apply the eye test I recall a moment during the Fiji match where Bill Mata approached the Scotland defensive line at something approaching full tilt. Fagerson stopped him dead. I think any doubts about his ability here can be put to bed.
We should probably check how these stats look though when compared with minutes played, just to ensure it’s a fair comparison.
Fagerson leading the way, and clearly too and Ritchie and Schoeman come out of this well too. Gilchrist isn’t always the most exciting selection and despite playing a lot of minutes the above chart in combination with his average tackling and carrying stats suggest there could be room for improvement in the second row. I wonder if Cummings would provide a more impactful complement to either of the Grays who both stand out for either their line-out impact (Richie) or defensive contribution (Jonny). The former is surely a fixture going forward given our lineout is much poorer without him so perhaps Cummings would be the man to add a bit more oomph beside him. Sam Skinner could be an option too. We’ve talked already about the difference players like Schoeman and Ashman can make to our pack and it does feel like Gilchrist is firmly in the mould of (very) hard worker but without a point of difference. If we want to compete with the top nations we need something extra or stand out in every position and a red scrum cap may not cut it.
Seems only fair that we should also take a look at the more negative moments of impact too though.
Now I must confess that I’m unsure of whether scrum penalties are included or not here in the official stats so we’ll be kind to Schoeman and assume that they may be, I also don’t believe Sage recorded knock ons amongst the handling errors (which is bizarre but there you go) so bear that in mind. I’ve also left out yellow cards, there weren’t many and they were all for varying things so I don’t think their inclusion would add much.
Jamie Ritchie really stands out here with 8 penalties, doesn’t he? We need to bear in mind that he also topped the chart for turnovers won and that’s a high risk, high reward game. However he’ll want to cut out the silly penalties such as the one for the extra roll near the New Zealand line and the one for tackling an Argentine from the ground going forwards.
Credit to Matt Fagerson again though, 1 penalty conceded in 300 minutes? Impressive discipline. Credit to Fraser Brown too who has often been labelled a penalty magnet but kept his personal count down to 1.
Time for me to wrap this up with a bit of a conclusion then. I think our forwards sometimes take a fair bit of flack, not physical enough and so on and it’s not always without merit. I have to say though my opinion both from having watched the Autumn series and looking at the stats is that we’ve got a group of forwards here who have gone toe to toe with four very good and physical sides and generally held their own outside of a period in the first half against Fiji where we had to weather a real storm. To a man they work enormously hard, there is grunt in spades in that pack and when drawn into a dogfight against the Argentines no backward steps were taken.
Schoeman gets through a huge amount of work for a prop as does Fagerson and I strongly believe that in Ashman and Dempsey we have a couple of big carriers coming into the side and this should give us an extra edge going forwards (literally and figuratively) adding more power. Unfortunately stats for the breakdown (rucks hit, first man to arrive and so on) aren’t freely available anywhere I could find, but I feel would tell the same story.
You may have noticed a bit of a recurring narrative running through my analysis as well, namely mention of Matt Fagerson. I’m going to stick my neck out now and say I thought he was our player of the series ( or at least the pick of the forwards given Darcy Graham’s performances). In fact I think he’s currently our best forward and I’d have no hesitation in having him as the first name on the team sheet up front. In my opinion he’s come on leaps and bounds over recent seasons and has answered every question asked of him. His workrate is off the chart in both attack and defence, he’s added real physicality to his game, rarely going backwards in contact and his consistency is seriously impressive, to maintain these levels over 300 minutes across 4 consecutive weekends is no mean feat. He may not be a Duane Vermeulen or Billy Vunipola when it comes to the eye-catching carries but he’s frequently top of our metres made stats and his overall contribution speaks for itself.
Backrow selection looks very competitive right now. Fagerson we’ve discussed, Ritchie is captain and Darge will surely come back in when fit too and I do like the look of Dempsey on the bench because he adds huge impact. Would it be madness to leave out Watson? Even seemingly slightly off his best, the stats do suggest Watson is still operating at a high level and he has time to peak again before we kick off against England in February. That’s some real depth brewing and we didn’t even get to see Crosbie this Autumn who I really rate. Not to mention Bradbury or Muncaster…
Who would you pick in your backrow?
I’m keen to read your thoughts and I’d love to get any feedback on this article particularly if you enjoyed it, then what else you’d maybe like to see in the future. The same for the backs? A comparison between what I’ve shown here and our peers and opponents? Something looking at impact from the bench? Let me know.
37 responses
If I were to go against England tomorrow my forwards would be (injury permitting):
Schoeman, Ashman, Fagerson, R Gray, Skinner, Dempsey, Darge, Fagerson
Incredibly confrontational and each with tricks up their sleeves. And who could be captain? Why not the man who leads by example in Matt Fagerson who I believe is listened to in the camp with respect and in past 2 years has massive maturity. High hopes for 6N and we’ll try our best in the World Cup (at least 2027 we have pray for practical pool selections!)
It wouldn’t be madness to leave out Watson, far from it, especially when Darge is fit
Stats or not, I don’t think Watson is at his previous levels, more specifically I thing Darge a better carrier, and Watson according to your stats did not make a single turnover – that would be unthinkable with Darge
Watson has been anonymous for quite a while now at test level…time to move on.
Either Ritchie..Darge..Crosbie at 7 ..imo all better options at the moment.
Dempsey Darge Crosbie Ritchie would be my 4 in the 23
tend to agree re Watson – shame as he has been star player over the years. Is there chance he can get his mojo back?
Maybe Watson needs another summer off to rest and recuperate
“His workrate is off the chart in both attack and defence”
Pretty sure he was ON every chart you had created on this page – which was a lot!
But thanks, this is really cool to see and some good insights.
I think Watson has the potential to get back to his pre-lions best, but he should be dropped for now and hopefully this gives him the motivation to really push on as he really was world-class for a number of years.
For me Jonny Gray should be nowhere near the squad (except in our current injury situation) we have always known he makes his tackles but they are passive, the ball carrying is passive and it sets a bad tone for the team. 5th best lock currently.
Glen Young and Dave Cherry should make way for Stuart McInally and Hunter Hill or Sykes based on those stats.
I like Ewan Ashman but im guessing most of the minutes highlighted above where against Fiji, and the sample size is too small to say for sure he is our best Hooker at this moment.
It’s a shame Murphy Walker did not get more game-time to see how far away he is from Fagerson at the moment, then would have been the time to blood him proper before the Six Nations.
Based on Injuries this is the pack i’d throw out against England at this moment
Schoeman – Brown – Fagerson – Gilchrist – R Gray – Fagerson – Ritchie (c) – Dempsey
Crosbie – J.Gray – Nel – Bhatti – McInally
Zander’s injured his hamstring and likely to be out for at least the start of the 6N.
Pretty big loss but will at least force us to give Walker game time. Imagine he’ll start with WP there in case of emergency in the scrums.
Agree on J Gray. Think Exeter have attempted to make him into the new Jonny Hill (tighthead lock) there as he looks way bigger than last season. Doesn’t look like it’s worked as he isn’t any more powerful and seemed to lumber around the pitch.
If Darge can get back before the six nations, I’d start him over Watson. Hamish has been one of our best players of the last 10 years but doesn’t look right at the moment. Couple of injuries and post-lions burnout probably to blame but we know how good he can be and need to get him fired up and at his best for the world cup. Maybe a spell on the bench / rest will do that.
Glasgow game, why is Jones playing inside centre? Why do we keep playing people out of position
You would think it would make sense to try Tuipolotu at 12 if your gonna play them both at the same time huh, considering he plays 12 for Scotland recently
Is this Toony interference ?
The mighty Huw Jones is back. Hands off Townsend, he is much too good for you .
a wins a win for Glasgow – general comment is that French teams not performing particularly well – do they see this comp as low priority?
The head coach of that French team said it himself before kick off that Top14 survival is their full priority and they don’t care about this competition.
What can be done to make the challenge cup an attractive competition?
I think all European competitions and season need a major rethink. Bulls sent a squad to Exeter with 21 fit senior players at home as they are prioritising URC and Currie Cup. Gloucester sent an extremely callow side to Dublin to accept their due thrashing.
Format means teams don’t have to perform particularly well to progress – in fact you can reach knock outs with a solitary win and 3/4 BPs. As competition is spread throughout domestic season it can’t help but disrupt and force teams to choose which tournament is most important to them. Challenge Cup is low status whilst European Cup is out of reach for all but a handful of teams.
All in all it’s a bit of a mess.
Africans in European competitions ?
Its a difficult situation for WRO and Sth Africa.
They are a rugby playing country who regularly challenge for the top honors in the sport….yet for them to compete with either the best teams in NH/Europe and/or SH they are faced with expensive and extensive travel. Their domestic,URC and cup matches don’t consistently attract huge crowds either ..so where does the money come from to pay for the variety of expenses + make it worthwhile?
They bring a lot to the tournament. Great to see Ruan Pienaar still looking like the best man on the pitch yesterday, age 38. Magnificent. I would love to see him up against Price. You know what , there is only one winner and it will not be Price. Man v daft boy, old bull versus young bull.
Weir at 10, Huw Jones at 12, Tuipulotu at 13……………….and we wonder why the backs didn’t spark!!
A really funny game, French went down to 13 men and it made no difference whatsoever to the game.
Having Huw Jones at 12 was just funny, Weir stands way to deep giving the defence loads of time. It’s absolutely remarkable how Richie Gray has played so few times for Scotland he is simply magnificent in the line out.
Yeh, they should have attacked a lot flatter, look at Leinster against Gloucester.
Glasgow need a 10 who can recognise where the space is as well as manage a game, that was a big factor in why the scoreline was so close
Glasgow won despite themselves. They did their best to cock it up but the opposition were onto it. They just wanted out of the cold and on a plane home.
was playing jones at 12 and Tui at 13 just Franco sticking two fingers up at GT and saying i’ll pick them wherever i want for Glasgow?
Finn to bath confirmed.
Good points: Russell, Redpath, Lawrence a very similar dynamic to Russell, Redpath, Tui.
Bad points:Van Graan has always played a very dull kicking based game.
watched Racing game today – Finn had a bit of a mare – charged down at least 4 times and contributed little to proceedings
Glad the analysis finally highlights the average player Gilchrist is. Some peolle saying he was player of the Autumn, absolute rubbish. Feel with him and J.Gray in the row, all you get are ineffective carries and soft tackles.
R.Gray looks back to his best, think Skinner brings that hard edge we need (and more mobile than Gray / can cover BR), Cummings is atheltic and will hopefully develop further. Agree on the above comment about J.Gray, he’s just too passive and hasn’t kicked on in years. Similar to Exeter team as a whole mind. Hunter-Hill getting game time for Sarries, and not heard about Henderson in ages either – hoping both progress further.
Would like to see Crosbie get some game time, he’s looked cracking in Champions Cup and is a big lad, line out option also. If Darge gets back fit soon, would like to see either him or Crosbie on the bench – love Watson but like others, think he really needs a rest to get back to form.
With Crosbie and others, back row looks super competitive and exciting.
Side note – interested on Cooney switching… Price has looked naff lately and a goal kicking 9 wouldn’t be the worst idea with Townsends desire for Kinghorn at 10 (not that I want him there mind).
Craig, agree re locks, R.Gray & Skinner.
I’ve advocated Crosbie for Scotland for a while now, it’s whom you leave out that is the issue, we’ve got 2 international class backrows available
Dempsey Darge Crosbie ; Fagerson Watson Ritchie.
I reckon Cooney is better than any “scottish 9” but is “it” 100% necessary??
I think part of the problem is that we have so many good quality back-rows without any one combo standing out as the obvious choice. Probably behind in the pecking order but could also list Bradbury, Muncaster and Gordon and also Bayliss, Christie and Boyle. No doubt others too who are catching the eye. Bradbury really needs to find consistency and fast otherwise he’ll miss the boat if it hasn’t already sailed but on his day, can be a beast. I get Ritchie being captain but with his turnover prowess, could/should he be at openside to also had a bit of heft? Not convinced he’ll always justify being a guaranteed starter at 6 with Fagerson, Dempsey and Crosbie breathing down his neck, though like the thought of 3 of that 4 starting with the other on the bench. Darge will certainly have to excel when fit again to get a look in and while Watson has been brilliant for a number of years, I do wonder if injuries as well as years are catching on him.
Quite amazing that despite the analysis, many people think Jonny Gray and Gilchrist are our worst lock pairing.
Firstly, “soft” tackles v dominant tackles. Everyone agrees Jonny is a tackle machine, but rarely if ever makes a dominant tackle. Every one of the forwards that make dominant tackles also make missed tackles – that’s the price you pay. Jonny doesn’t miss them. Schoeman doesn’t make dominant tackles but nobody is saying he can’t tackle. One other thing, Jonny Gray often makes tackles before the opponent has made the gain line. Not seen as “dominant” but often allows for a dominant defensive ruck. I see nobody mentioned GG’s dominant tackles.
JG should make better use of his frame when carrying, but obviously offers himself up for carrying a lot – making the hard yards and often taking two or three defenders to bring him down and rarely getting turned over. Not spectacular but effective in its way. GG also is a “grafter”.
Maybe there isn’t room for two similar players in the same team. But surely there is room for one grafter?
As an ex-lock myself, the hard work is in the boilerhouse of the scrum and it would be interesting to see stats of scrums won and lost with the different pairings. I’m sure the props could give Toonie an insight into who they feel more comfortable with behind them.
The trouble is none of the locks mentioned is #1 in all areas: Scrummaging, lineouts, tackle %/dominant tackles, carrying & offloads.
I believe scrums are stronger if one or both of JG and GG are there.
The lineouts go better with one or both of RG and Cummings.
JG for tackle % but maybe GG or Skinner for dominant tackles.
Cummings or Skinner for carrying, but do they offer themselves up enough?
One thing is for certain, I hope Jonny Gray doesn’t read some of the drivel on here about his “soft” tackling and “ineffective” carrying. The stats don’t lie in this case. Maybe there are locks out there that can carry and tackle as much, but still burst through tackles and knock there oppo back every time. But if there are they’re not Scottish.
Sorry, but JG is ineffective in carrying the ball. Just look at the 2nd rows of the other 6n countries
Scotland have a 91% tackle completion rate across 2022, the highest of any tier 1 nations (2 cents recent video on youtube)
Making our tackles is not an issue, and that has been achieved without J Gray for the majority of this year.
We need ball carriers in near every position in the forwards to compete with the best.
I’ve just looked at the stats on ESPN for the Autumn games.
Jonny Hill made 18 carries in the last 4 games, for a total gain of 22 metres. That’s fewer carries per 80 and at a lower average gain.
Maro Itoje, and bear in mind he started two of those games at flanker and so will have a bit more space, made 18 carries for a total of 39 metres.
Adam Beard, over 4 games totalled 9 carries for a TOTAL 9 metres gained.
Tadgh Beirne, one of the best locks in the world, only managed 27 metres from 17 carries over his 3 games.
The fact is locks rarely make more than a couple of metres because they are SUPPOSED to be tying in defenders by running into traffic, and guys like Jonny Gray knock them down.
It is more perception than effectiveness, and I think many of you have confirmation bias.
Thanks for producing the stat info. It’s interesting, to me anyway, how they compare to the visual reality of Scotlands forward play against top sides.
I think that one common feature of stats, in pretty much all sports, is that they have no ‘weight’ they are often formulated without consideration of circumstances. JG/GG stats could appear comparable at first glance…but then where on the pitch were their metres gained or tackle success?…were they meaningful or garbage yards gained?…did the play result in a score? what was the score when the play was made?…etc etc
Watching Scotland …rarely do our forwards look like they are a threat or winning their respective duals…and it almost always appears that way with either JG or GG playing ..so why is that?..maybe selective bias…but when soo many fans feel the same …I doubt it.
JG: tackle machine, great. But he’s been like that for years and he’s not developed anymore than soaking up tackles. Arguably has regressed, haven’t sees carries like his score against NZ in 2018 for a while. Offers little to no carrying ability bar being a big lump of a man, and offers no breakdown threat.
As Rob says, if you look at other nations 2nd rows, Gray / GG are miles behind, e.g. Bierne (massive breakdown threat, dynamic runner), Etzebeth, (huge carrier), Itoje / Reatalick / Woki / Ryan / and even Adam Beard is a superb maul defender (though probs on par with JG / GG overall).
And as mentioned in the article, and by Neil, Scotlands tackle percentage is high, especially in the forwards, and this was without JG for most of this year (and Scotland’s defensive system allows forwards to double up more often than not, being more susceptible out wide). Not sure having JG in the team would improve our fortunes too much.
GG; “No one mentioned GG’s dominant tackles”, probably because I / no-one else can think of any. I think he offers less than JG mind.
I agree on potentially having one grafter in the team, but as above, really feel JG / GG as a combo is not our best.
As Neil says, we need ball carriers. I’d also argue, and have heard it from others, we need ‘nastier’ forwards, of which JG / GG are not (but Skinner / Henderson arguably are).
The game has simply moved on from a few years ago when making tackles was all you needed from your 2nd rows. Other nations have superb carriers, tacklers and breakdown threats in the boiler room now, and we can’t afford to be left behind.
Interesting debate about stats and what can be deduced from them. I still think our major problem is retaining possession, particularly at the breakdown but also evident in set pieces. I’m fine with forwards making a couple of metres PROVIDED we then keep possession to make those metres count. 30 phases at 2 metres apiece gets you a long way up the pitch and most likely shatters the opposing defence. Every time we get to within touching distance of the try line I get this uneasy feeling we’ll somehow contrive to cough up possession. I’ve said before that our current crop of players, including some of those on the fringe of the squad have enough beef to make metres but desperately need better coaching at the breakdown to protect our possession. Of course you wouldn’t say no to someone who through sheer power and baulk can punch holes as long as they can offer something else too but we could do so much more with the existing squad if we didn’t gift wrap the ball for the opposition. I’m sure that a consistent 2-metre gain would then “feel” far more convincing, especially if our backs then had the space to exploit after the hard yards have been gained upfront, sucking in the opposing defence. The problem is then who do you get to do the coaching.
Yeah… like I was touching on…
Where ,when, how …both our positive and negative play occurs dictate how useful stats actually are. Most of the stats deployed in sports are actually not articulate enough considering how they are supposed to be used. There are too many grey areas that are not covered. AI will no doubt inch closer to that as times move.
As far as the here and now with our rugby…. to me… we do positive and negative things in the wrong areas of the park or at either more or less important junctures in games.
Our positive meters gained often gets nullified by lack of support play and players therefore getting isolated and either turned over or pressured into high risk mistakes. Opposition see where and when we are doing this and the top teams have the players to capitalise on that. Our penalty type and numbers seem a direct result of that.
Also, our breakdown skill has imo regressed hugely the last couple of years. For a while it was an asset ..now it’s a weak part of our game. Watson was significant when we were good….and also since he lost fitness and form.. which has been a while now. We sorely missed Darge in the autumn series, probably the most technically skilled open side we have. Do we need a breakdown specialist like R Gray back in again..or is it our players skill level??
Our coaching just doesn’t seem good enough for what we need at this time…and I’m not just targeting GT…the forwards coaching just isn’t cutting it and also seems out of sync with attack coaching. Ireland for eg…I don’t think their players are markedly better than ours…I do think they are far more organized and united in their approach though and that’s what gets them over the line. Are they more unified because they use players who play their rugby brand from clubs in Ireland. Ours are far more of a mish mash of styles..leaving only a short time to unify before a test.
just general comment, which may be just an impression rather than fact – we are very inefficient when attacking 5 metres out (white line fever) and not so great at defending same. Games tend to be won or lost on this (certainly tight ones) and this for me is an obvious focus for improvement