July 2, 2010 in Australian Rugby, News by Austin
This year we’ve introduced a comprehensive statistical analysis of Wallabies games. After four games of the 2010 season and with a four week break for the Wallabies now’s the time to reflect on what’s happened so far and look at the trends that have developed.
In terms of possession, there’s not much continuity in the Wallabies current game with 42% of the Wallabies possession sequences only lasting one phase with a further 27% lasting two phases.
One of the major issues with continuity has been lost ball with an average 36% of the possession sequences the Wallabies start ending with a turnover. These numbers don’t include the times the Wallabies kick the ball and given that the Wallabies average 50 possession sequences per game, that doesn’t leave a lot of quality possession to attack with. The game high was against England in Perth where the Wallabies lost possession 55% of the time they started a sequence.
The numbers for the lineout are good with 42 of 46 lineouts won by the Wallabies and only 41 of 53 won by the opposition. Amazingly, the scrum numbers aren’t too bad with 31 of 34 fed by the Wallabies won whilst 40 of 41 fed by the opposition have been won by them. Penalties and free kicks are counted as wins and losses for these numbers.
The Wallabies are averaging 7 line breaks per game whereas the opposition has been averaging 2 line breaks per game. Of course these numbers are inflated for the Wallabies by the game against Fiji where 10 of their 27 line breaks this season came in one game. In the second game against England and the game against Ireland the Wallabies only manged 5 line breaks in each game.
In terms of defence the percentage of successful tackles made by the Wallabies has been declining in each game. From 89% against Fiji down to 85% against Ireland.
The Wallabies are averaging 17 missed tackles per game with Quade Cooper having missed 11 tackles and only averaging a success rate of 62% of the tackles he attempts. Rob Horne has missed 8 tackles but is averaging a success rate of 78%. In his limited time on the field Kurtley Beale has missed 2 tackles so that gives him the dubious honour of the lowest successful tackle rate at 50%.
The percentage of dominant tackles made by the Wallabies has averaged 26% of all completed tackles but slipped to only 16% against Ireland. Saia Faingaa leads the dominant tackle percentages with 42% with David Pocock at 39%. Adam Ashley-Cooper leads the percentages for the backs with 29%.
The Wallabies have conceded 45 penalties and free kicks but have received exactly the same number.
Successful conversion attempts are running at 86% but successful penalty attempts are only averaging 53%. The overall goal kicking success rate is 69%.
The Wallabies have scored 14 tries but only conceded 4 tries in the season so far.
Click on the Team Statistics and Player Statistics graphics to download the full set of statistics.
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