Statistic of the Day

[Lizard]

Japan are also the only team to be undefeated against the Springboks, which is a remarkable record.

I was trying to think of some convoluted stat showing which top tier countries had opponents against whom they have never won.

[Lizard]

Every All Black who has played at least one Bledisloe Cup test but never played in a series in which NZ won the Cup:

1998-2002 dry-spell
Joe McDonnell
Tom Willis
Mark Robinson
Pita Alatini
Todd Blackadder
Ron Cribb
Andrew Blowers
Tony Brown
Greg Feek
Darryl Gibson
Norm Maxwell
Dylan Mika
Eroni Clarke
Royce Willis
Carl Hoeft
Mark Mayerhofler
Scott Robertson
Scott McLeod
Isitolo Maka
Joeli Vidiri

1994 One-hit wonders
Stephen Bachop
Shane Howarth
Blair Larsen

1992 One-hit wonder
Ant Strachan

1986 Baby Blacks (the Cavaliers’ ban included the first Bledisloe test)
Marty Berry
Buck Anderson
Kevin Borovich
Frano Botica
Mark Brooke-Cowden
Greg Cooper
Brian McGrattan
Michael Speight
Hika Reid*

1979-1981 Dry-spell (no matches in 1981)
Nicky Allen
Lachie Cameron
Geoff Hines
Tim Twigden
Brett Codlin
John Fleming
Hika Reid*
Murray Watts
John Black
Gary Cunningham
Mike McCool
Murray Taylor

1949 B team (selected alongside the “real” All Blacks who went on the disastrous tour of South Africa)
JGP Bond
TR O'Callaghan
DH O'Donnell
RA Roper
HCB Rowley
VD Bevan
AW Blake
RF Bryers
RL Dobson
AM Hughes
JW Kelly
WA Lunn
GJT Moore
WJ Mumm
RW Orr
RC Stuart

1934 One-hit wonders
Ned Barry
Edward Holder
Hawea Mataira
Bubs Knight
Charlie Oliver

*Reid played in the 1980 lost series when Andy Dalton was unavailable. Dalton kept him out for the wins in 1982, ’83, 84 and ’85. Hika was reselected just in time to lose the Cup in 1986, after which Sean Fitzpatrick took the top job.

[Lizard]

Success rates at Loftus Versfeld:

Namibia 100%
New Zealand 85.7%
South Africa 75%
Lions 60%
Argentina, France, Scotland 50%
England 25%
Aust, Fiji, Ire, Italy, Samoa, Sth America, Tonga 0%

[Lizard]

Ultimate Utility Team

Someone was posting on Twitter today about test players capped in 3+ different positions. Here is a XV that can be rearranged in 3 ways so that every player occupies 3 different positions in which he has received at least one starting cap (listed 1-15):

Peni Ravai Kovekalou
Stefano Saviozzi
Federico Mendez Azpillaga
Colin Meads
Danie Rossouw
Leone Nakarawa
David Pocock
John Kendall-Carpenter
Austin Healy
RuanPienaar
James O'Connor
Matt Giteau
Adam Ashley-Cooper
Mike Catt
Paul Williams

Federico Mendez Azpillaga
Peni Ravai Kovekalou
John Kendall-Carpenter
Danie Rossouw
Leone Nakarawa
Colin Meads
Stefano Saviozzi
David Pocock
Matt Giteau
James O'Connor
Austin Healy
Mike Catt
Paul Williams
Adam Ashley-Cooper
Ruan Pienaar

John Kendall-Carpenter
Federico Mendez Azpillaga
Peni Ravai Kovekalou
Leone Nakarawa
Colin Meads
David Pocock
Danie Rossouw
Stefano Saviozzi
Ruan Pienaar
Matt Giteau
Adam Ashley-Cooper
Paul Williams
Mike Catt
Austin Healy
James O'Connor

[Puja]

Very nice! I suspect you'd have an issue with the front row, but I wonder how far you could get with a 4-way team. Nakarawa, Catt, Giteau, and O'Connor could do it.

Puja

[Lizard]

Yep, front row is the limiting factor. Rossouw, Meads, Healy would also be contenders for a 4 way side.

[Puja]

After the conversation we had on the All Blacks lack of drop goals, cam across a fun stat this morning - over the last 2 seasons, the English Premiership has only had 1 drop goal attempt for every 9 games. Attempts, not even successful goals.

Sod the All Blacks, gods help anyone who's 2 points down in time added on.

Puja

[Stom]

Yep, front row is the limiting factor. Rossouw, Meads, Healy would also be contenders for a 4 way side.

AAC, too.

[Doorzetbornandbred]

Im pretty certain Phillipe Sella at one point or another played every position in the backline bar halfback for France.

[Mellsblue]

Are we just including starting positions or permanent position moves during a match. If it’s the latter then Matt Tait must’ve covered 11 - 15. My only question mark is whether he has played both wings.

[Stom]

Did Corry ever start at 5? As he's played 4, 6, 8 for England, no?

And did Mauro Bergamasco play 8 at one point? That would be 6,7,8,9.lol

[Puja]

Did Corry ever start at 5? As he's played 4, 6, 8 for England, no?

And did Mauro Bergamasco play 8 at one point? That would be 6,7,8,9.lol

That game still raises a smile. When going through school rugby, there was always a couple of arseholes who were big and talented and loved themselves intensely - they thought they could do everything and, most annoyingly, they were usually right. The rare occasion where one of them bit off more than they could chew and looked all the pricks of the day was always satisfying. That's what Bergamasco at 9 reminded me of - that arrogance of believing you're so much better than everyone else that you can do everything even better than the specialists.

Puja

[Digby]

Did Corry ever start at 5? As he's played 4, 6, 8 for England, no?

And did Mauro Bergamasco play 8 at one point? That would be 6,7,8,9.lol

That game still raises a smile. When going through school rugby, there was always a couple of arseholes who were big and talented and loved themselves intensely - they thought they could do everything and, most annoyingly, they were usually right. The rare occasion where one of them bit off more than they could chew and looked all the pricks of the day was always satisfying. That's what Bergamasco at 9 reminded me of - that arrogance of believing you're so much better than everyone else that you can do everything even better than the specialists.

Puja

Let's not overlook Mauro playing 14 when Italy were inspired to seek something akin to Lomu

[Lizard]

Are we just including starting positions or permanent position moves during a match. If it’s the latter then Matt Tait must’ve covered 11 - 15. My only question mark is whether he has played both wings.

My team is based on starts only. There’s no reliable record of positional changes mid-game.

[Mellsblue]

Are we just including starting positions or permanent position moves during a match. If it’s the latter then Matt Tait must’ve covered 11 - 15. My only question mark is whether he has played both wings.

My team is based on starts only. There’s no reliable record of positional changes mid-game.

Spoilsport

[Lizard]

New Zealand XV, uncapped v capped test sides

Jun 1968: 1 “test” v Fiji (possibly a Presidents XV but recorded as being capped) in Suva, 3 days after the last match of an 11-game, 2 test tour of Australia.

Jun 1974: 1 “test” v Fiji in Suva, 3 days after the last match of a 12-game, 2 test tour of Australia.

Oct – Nov 1976: 3 “test” tour of v Argentina (2) and Uruguay (1). No-one from the 1st XV tour of SA (Jun – Sept 1976) was taken. (Although the Jaffray brothers, Lyn and Merv played for the 1sts and 2nds respectively)

Sept 1979: 2 "tests" v touring Argentina. Sandwiched between the French Tour (2 tests) and Bledisloe (1-off) in July, and a tour to England/Scotland on Oct/Nov, 2 current test players were taken, and 6 more were capped on the subsequent tour.

Nov 1979: 1 “test” v Italy to close the abovementioned tour to Eng/Sco.

Jul 1980: 1 “test” v Fiji in Suva, the last match of a 16-game, 3 test tour of Australia and Fiji.

Sept 1980: 1 “test” v Fiji at Auckland, featuring 8 players who toured North America/Wales a month later.

Oct 1980: “Tests” v USA and Canada en route to Wales (1 test played).

Oct 1984: 1 “test” as part of a weird 4-match tour of Fiji, several weeks after the 1st XV got back from a tour of Australia. There was no November tour to the NH that year.

Nov 1987: This was weird. A few months after storming the inaugural World Cup, and then smashing the Wallabies in a one-off Bledisloe test, a full-strength All Blacks side* played 5 matches over 15 days in Japan including 2 “tests”, Japan B, Asian Barbarians and a JRFU Presidents XV. The aggregate score was 408 – 16. I assume money changed hands somewhere along the line.

Jun 1991: “tests” v Romania and the USSR. Although NZRU-sanctioned (and used to identify fringe talent for RWC1991) the matches do not appear in the official list of All Blacks non-test matches.

This excludes the ex post facto capped NSW teams that played NZ XVs in the 1920s.

*Minus Joe Stanley, Warwick Taylor, John Drake (resting) and Michael Jones (Sunday matches ruled him out). Plus some guy called Paul Simonsson who is mostly famous for getting injured after switching to league, making way for his former Waikato team mate Darryl Halligan to get very famous in the criminal code.

[Lizard]

In two Bledisloe tests this year, the All Blacks have scored 38 and 40 points. If they maintain that average of 39 points per match they will reach an aggregate 117 points, a record for the All Blacks against Australia in a calendar year.The current record is 116, set in 2010 over 4 tests.

However, the All Blacks would need to run in a mammoth 65 points to equal the all-time record of 143 set by England over 4 tests v Australia in 2016.

NZ's lowest annual totals against Australia are:
1 test: 6 points (1979)
2 tests: 14 (1934)
3 tests: 24 (1991)
4 tests: 105 (2008)
5 tests: 62 (1962) - also the highest as this is the only year NZ played AU 5 times.

[Lizard]

Most points scored in a calendar year: 658, South Africa 2007 (17 tests - 2x England tour, Samoa, 4x3N, Namibia, 7xRWC, Wales)

Most points conceded in a calendar year: 728, Chinese Taipei, 2002 (13 tests including conceding 394 in 3 consecutive games v Korea & Japan x2). This is the only ever instance of a team conceding 3 centuries in one calendar year.

Second place is Italy, 1999 with 627 in 12 tests.

[Lizard]

The record for most matches against a single opposing team without a win is 14, shared by 6 players:

Mario Lame, Uruguay v Arg (4 uncapped by Arg), 1987-2001
Stephen Jones, Wales (11)/Lions (3) v NZ, 2002-2010
BOD, Ireland (13)/Lions (1) v NZ, 2002-2013
Gethin Jenkins, Wales (11)/Lions (3) v NZ, 2002-2016
Sergio Parisse, Italy v England, 2004-2018 (likely to take the record to 15 in 6N 2019)
Agustin Creevy, Arg v NZ, 2011-2018 (likely to equal the record at 15 during TRC2019, assuming it will be a single round due to RWC)

[Lizard]

Beauden Barrett had this weekend overtaken Dan Carter as the player with the most test tries (26) when starting at or replacing 10. He’s taken 54 tests (including 16 off the bench) to get there.

Carter took 100 (only 6 off the bench) to set the previous mark of 25.

Larkham is 3rd with 20 tries in 86 tests (only 2 as sub). No-one else has more than 15.

No 10 with >5 tries from a top tier nation beats Barrett’s strike rate of 0.48 tries per test.

Johnny Wilkinson scored 7 tries in his 87 tests at 10.

[Lizard]

This is the Wallabies squad from Saturday with their success rates v NZ. Draws count as half a win.

1 Scott Sio 2 wins/ from 11 tests, 15.4%
2 Folau Fainga'a 0/2, 0.0%
3 Allan Alaalatoa 1/8, 11.1%
4 Izack Rodda 0/4, 0.0%
5 Rob Simmons 3/21*, 11.9%
6 Ned Hanigan 1/4, 25.0%
7 Michael Hooper 3/20*, 15.0%
8 David Pocock 3/22, 13.6%
9 Will Genia 3/25, 12.0%
10 Bernard Foley 2.5/15, 16.7%
11 Marika Koroibete 1/4, 25.0%
12 Kurtley Beale 5/20*, 25.0%
13 Israel Folau 2.5/17, 14.7%
14 Sefanaia Naivalu 0/2, 0.0%
15 Dane Haylett-Petty 0/7, 0.0%
Substitutes
16 Silatolu Latu 0/2, 0.0%
17 Sekope Kepu 4/23*, 17.4%
18 Taniela Tupou 0/1, 0.0%
19 Rory Arnold 0/4, 0.0%
20 Jack Dempsey 1/2, 50.0%
21 Nick Phipps 3/14*, 21.4%
22 Samu Kerevi 1/5. 20.0%
23 Thomas Banks 0/2, 0.0%

10 of the 23 had played NZ 5 or fewer times.
8 had never beaten New Zealand.
5 have had a single win.
6 had 2 wins, of whom 2 have also drawn once and 3 drawn twice.
3 have had 3 wins, one of whom has also drawn twice.
Beale stands alone with 4 wins, plus 2 draws.

4 wins puts Beale 39th= for most wins v NZ by an Australian, alongside 29 other Wallabies, none of whom matched Beale's 20 caps v NZ.


*Including 2 draws

[Lizard]

Nice stattage.

[Lizard]

Here's one that could use some crowd-sourcing. The NZ Herald is suggesting that Luke Whitelock will be named captain of the Deputy All Blacks v Japan, making hims and Sam the first brothers to captain the All Blacks in tests. (As far as I know, the only closely related All Black captains have been Frank Oliver and his son, Anton.)

There have been two other sets of New Zealand-born brother captains:
Gavin and Paul Williams both captained Samoa.
Bob and Darby Loudon both captained NSW in the 1920s in one match each that was later recognised as a test for Australia by the ARU. Bob's was against an uncapped All Blacks side, and Darby's was against an NZ Maori XV.

Alesana and Anitelea Tuilagi have both skippered Samoa.

England has had Charles and Edward Gurdon, and Frederic and Lennard Stokes.

Any others?

[Lizard]

Assuming the whole All Blacks bench will be used this weekend, there will be 8 new caps awarded. This is the most All Blacks debuts in a single match since the 1986 Baby Blacks, 11 of whom made their debut in an unexpected win in the first test against France.

It's hard to get across how exceptional the circumstances were that led to 11 new caps in one match. For those too young to remember, the Baby Blacks was the All Black team sent to France while the NZ Cavaliers served a 2 match ban for their rebel tour of apartheid South Africa. The Cavaliers was basically the entire All Blacks squad originally selected for the cancelled official tour to SA planned for 1985.* Not only that, but in 1986 substitutions were only allowed for injures and were rare. Coming off hurt was considered cowardly unless you had a visibly broken arm or something. You picked your 1st XV and that was it - no rotation, no building depth. For example, in the 10 tests immediately prior to the Baby Blacks (i.e. every test match in 1984 and 1985) the All Blacks used only 32 players and 6 of them only played in the slightly weakened squad sent to Argentina. By comparison, in 10 tests in less than the last 5 months the modern All Blacks have used 39 players.

Since 1986, 5 or more new All Blacks have been capped in these matches:
18 June 1999 v Samoa: 5 new caps (win)
9 November 2002 v England: 7 (loss - as Clive W gave the lunatic John Mitchell a coaching lesson)
23 November 2002 v Wales: 6 (win - the lunatic again, who oddly put out no debutantes in the draw v France played between this match and the one above. Weirdo)
27 June 2009 v Italy: 5 (win)
12 June 2010 v Ireland: 6 (win)

Before 1986, multiple debuts were much more common because tests were fewer and further apart. You still need to go back to the 1972 Bledisloe series to find the next instance of 8 debutantes in one match.

The next most recent instance of 8 was in the same series in 1955.

On 3 September 1949, 15 new All Blacks were created, although 2 were playing South Africa and 13 were playing Australia.

In the All Blacks first post-WWII match, v Aussie on 14 September 1946, unsurprisingly the entire starting XV plus the 1 sub used was on debut.** This is the record number of debut All Blacks in a single day.

Honourable mention should go to the 1913 Bledisloe series. 13 All Blacks debuted in the first test in Wellington. 13 more debuted a week later in Dunedin. A final 3 took their bow in the 3rd test in Christchurch. Despite trying out 29 new players and 35 in total in this series, the selectors still managed to pick 2 uncapped players in a test v USA only 2 months later out of a touring squad of only 23.

The only other time 15 uncapped All Blacks took the field was in their very first test ever, v Australia, 15 August 1903.


*Only RWC1987 heroes David Kirk and John Kirwan chose not to go.
**The first test after WW1, v SA in 1921, featured only 14 new caps plus the 40-year old legend Ned Hughes - still easily the oldest ever All Black.

[Lizard]

Teams that have scored 5+ tries in a test v NZ:

South Africa: 5 times, 4 wins and a loss
Australia: 3 times, 1 win, 2 losses. Plus once by a retrospectively capped 1920s NSW team that won.
Ireland: in its only win v NZ
Japan: in tonight’s loss
Romania: in a loss v a non-All Blacks NZ XV in 1991

England, Scotland, Wales, France, Argentina, Italy: never