England vs New Zealand - Saturday

[Mellsblue]

Some interesting bits from Warburton’s column:

The turning point for me was around 65 minutes. Up until then England had conceded only two penalties, which is remarkable. But from 65 minutes to the end of the game, they conceded five penalties.
What I put that down to is the New Zealand bench having a little bit more impact. Suddenly in those last 15 minutes, the number of New Zealand carries went up. Indeed in the last quarter they made 58 carries, whereas in the other three quarters of the game they had averaged between 30 and 40 carries per quarter. When it mattered most New Zealand were very comfortable with ball in hand and very powerful as well, whereas England didn’t trust their defensive system as well as they had done in the first three quarters.

Why weren’t he [Freeman] and George Furbank used more overall? They had only five touches of the ball each.
Contrast that with Will Jordan, who had 17, and Mark Tele’a, who had 13. Feyi-Waboso only had eight but he did do some damage with them.
When you’ve got such a potent back three, it would be nice to see them in the game more often. Double figures really is the target in terms of touches

[pjm1]

There are some ok match stats here: https://www.englandrugby.com/fixtures-a ... definition

Using these and making some assumptions (not necessarily accurate ones), we can look at the involvement of each player or groups of players in the attack.

First, the (not wholly accurate) assumption: the number of attacking interventions by a player is #passes made + #carries (except for scrumhalf where all passes made are assumed from the base and therefore don't count in their attacking interventions). This won't be totally correct, as there will be instances when a player makes a carry and then passes (rather than offloads), but they are rarer and we can't unpick that unless we get better stats or do a MBM.

This gives us 119 attacking interventions by our starting 15 - 76 carries plus 43 (non SH) passes made. That feels consistent with our complaints that we play tighter and seek to carry through, rather than pass around the opposition. If we then look at which players are making these attacking interventions we have:

FR 10%
2R 18%
BR 28%
SH 3%
FH 13%
C 8%
B3 19%

56% of our attacking ball is being touched by our pack, versus just 22% between FH and centres - the tactics here are clear that 9 is passing to our forward pods so much more frequently. The fact our forwards see 2.5x as much ball as our fly half and both centres COMBINED is... erm... interesting.

This compares to NZ's stats using the same methodology:

FR 7%
2R 10%
BR 24%
SH 1%
FH 14%
C 16%
B3 29%

And the forwards (all 8, in total) seeing their 40% of ball which is only 1.36x as much as the 3-person FH+IC+OC combo. 113 carries vs 92 passes. Far more fluid and backs-oriented.

I don't think any of this is really that surprising when we really think about how England plays. But it is a system thing, not a Marcus Smith thing or a George Ford thing. If anything, it is entirely down to the choices made by the 9 - if he's passing mostly to forward pods, we can't be surprised when our centres rarely get to see the ball.

The biggest differences in how NZ used their players in attack versus England were:

• FB and IC both each saw 7% more ball than England's
• Sititi saw 7% more ball than CCS - and you would if he was on your team!
• Earl took 10% more ball than Savea
• Martin took 7% more ball than Vaa'i

The first bullet for me is the killer - we have relative passenger players in our backs during attack compared to how NZ bring them into the line - no wonder they can break around our defence.

[Mellsblue]

There are some ok match stats here: https://www.englandrugby.com/fixtures-a ... definition

Using these and making some assumptions (not necessarily accurate ones), we can look at the involvement of each player or groups of players in the attack.

First, the (not wholly accurate) assumption: the number of attacking interventions by a player is #passes made + #carries (except for scrumhalf where all passes made are assumed from the base and therefore don't count in their attacking interventions). This won't be totally correct, as there will be instances when a player makes a carry and then passes (rather than offloads), but they are rarer and we can't unpick that unless we get better stats or do a MBM.

This gives us 119 attacking interventions by our starting 15 - 76 carries plus 43 (non SH) passes made. That feels consistent with our complaints that we play tighter and seek to carry through, rather than pass around the opposition. If we then look at which players are making these attacking interventions we have:

FR 10%
2R 18%
BR 28%
SH 3%
FH 13%
C 8%
B3 19%

56% of our attacking ball is being touched by our pack, versus just 22% between FH and centres - the tactics here are clear that 9 is passing to our forward pods so much more frequently. The fact our forwards see 2.5x as much ball as our fly half and both centres COMBINED is... erm... interesting.

This compares to NZ's stats using the same methodology:

FR 7%
2R 10%
BR 24%
SH 1%
FH 14%
C 16%
B3 29%

And the forwards (all 8, in total) seeing their 40% of ball which is only 1.36x as much as the 3-person FH+IC+OC combo. 113 carries vs 92 passes. Far more fluid and backs-oriented.

I don't think any of this is really that surprising when we really think about how England plays. But it is a system thing, not a Marcus Smith thing or a George Ford thing. If anything, it is entirely down to the choices made by the 9 - if he's passing mostly to forward pods, we can't be surprised when our centres rarely get to see the ball.

The biggest differences in how NZ used their players in attack versus England were:

• FB and IC both each saw 7% more ball than England's
• Sititi saw 7% more ball than CCS - and you would if he was on your team!
• Earl took 10% more ball than Savea
• Martin took 7% more ball than Vaa'i

The first bullet for me is the killer - we have relative passenger players in our backs during attack compared to how NZ bring them into the line - no wonder they can break around our defence.

Great work! You will now be expected to provide this after each England match.