Let’s have a look at the match stats for the Bok game against Australia, last week, as always, courtesy of Verusco. It’s a bit late, of course, but perhaps Heyneke Meyer might one day find these and use them to help him make better decisions… we continue to live in hope
The Boks had slightly more of the ball (41 minutes in control against 39) and the tackle count was also very close (143 to the Boks, 132 for the Wobblies). Both sides also made exactly 88% of their tackles stick. The Wallabies committed more handling errors (19 to 7) and conceded more penalties (12 to 10), yet somehow still won…
The bet Bok on defence was Marcell Coetzee (14 from 15), ahead of Willem Alberts (11 from 14) and Duane Vermeulen (11 from 12). Flip van der Merwe was the busiest on defence, with a good tackle for every 3.8 minutes on the field, followed by Coetzee (4.08) and Johan Goosen (5.97). Frans Steyn and Jannie du Plessis each missed the most tackles (4), while Jean de Villiers (3 from 5) had the lowest percentage with 60%.
Ruan Pienaar won possession 7 times, followed by Zane Kirchner (6) and Francois Hougard (5). Amazingly, it was Morne Steyn who made the most metres with ball in hand (92), ahead of Kirchner (67) and Frans Steyn (63). The only linebreaks in the entire game belonged to Goosen and Lwazi Mvovo, with 1 each. Needless to say, there were hardly any offloads, with Jannie du Plessis, Vermeulen, Bryan Habana and Kirchner each making 1.
Apart from Ruan Pienaar, there really were very few passes, with Juandre Kruger making 9 – one more than flyhalf Morne Steyn. Next best were Frans Steyn and Kirchner, with 6 each.
Vermeulen hit the most rucks (21), followed by Kruger (17), then Beast Mtawarira, Alberts and Adriaan Strauss, with 14 each. Francois Louw was the busiest rucker, hitting one ruck for every 2.3 minutes on the field, ahead of Pat Cilliers (2.83) and Flip van der Merwe (3.16).
Jannie du Plessis committed the most individual errors (6 from 4 missed tackles and 2 penalties) while Vermeuelen, Alberts and Frans Steyn each made 4. Note that the loose forward who got dropped, Coetzee, committed only 1 error…
Based on these numbers, there really isn’t a most valuable player, so I’m not going to bother trying to argue why someone should win it. In a nutshell, they were all shyte!
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How do they measure metres with ball in hand? It must count metres run inside the 22 before kicking the ball as well – that’s the only way that MS and ZK can have notched up any metres.
@CDRhino (Comment 1) : 😀
Unfortunately in Rugby stats meters gained is what you and me would actually see as meters ran. As in every meter you moved forward with the ball in hand, even if you never GAINED any meters across the advantage line or past the first tackle.
I would like to see Rugby stats have a Meters Ran stat and a Meters Gained Across Advantage Line stat.
That would give a better indication of who really got the team on the front foot.
Morne stands about 15 meters behind the advantage line (maybe even more) So for him to make 90 meters (only from flyhalf, which we know that 90 meters was not) he would have had to take the ball to the contact point (without any success) 6 times.
In the first half, just before we scored that try that we should have scored 3 set pieces back, Morne ran a couple of times, but if he had passed (or known how to pass) we would have scored that try a lot earlier.
So people say he’s kicking to much and he’s not a running flyhalf and he tries to prove that they are wrong by running the ball when there is a 3 player over lap outside him. Idiot.
It says a lot when your lock passes the ball more than your flyhalf does..
rugbystats.com.au gives a better breakdown (tight, open, pick & drive, kick return, flyhalf run, scrumhalf run) but they have totally different running stats than Verusco:
Morne – 35m and Kirchner 5m – so I am not sure how accurate that is.
Morne’s sound about right, but Kirchner (even for him) is a bit low
@Bokhoring (Comment 6) : Maybe they do count Meters GAINED and not just meters RAN. Kirchner never got the ball over the advantage line, I wouldn’t even know where to give that 5m to him.
@Letgo (Comment 7) : They have a section for kick return which I assume will not count as over the advantage line – so I am pretty sure they count all runs regardless from where you start
This from an article on the roar:
Between them, Goosen and Lambie
made 39 running metres from 19
minutes of game time. Contrast that to
Morne Steyn and Zane Kirchner who
produced 40m across the turf in 145
minutes on the field. That is why
South Africa lost this match.
It wasn’t just their own running
metres that improved the side either.
As soon as Goosen went on his first
gallop, Jean de Villiers and Francois
Steyn had more room to operate
because of the inside threat.
Meyer needs to start Lambie at the
back in their next match and bring
Goosen on much sooner. That is only
if F. Steyn or Goosen are considered
too unreliable off the tee to jolt Morne
from the starting 15.
(Statistics from
http://www.ruckingoodstats.com and
http://www.rugbystats.com.au )
@Hammerkop (Comment 9) : not that hard to work out, is it? Wonder if the coach is listening… LOL
@Hammerkop (Comment 9) :
Those stats speak volumes…
So Lambie and Goosen made as much running metres in 10 minutes as Kirchner and Morne in 70?
@Pokkel (Comment 11) : another one that stuck out for me was the one about michael hooper alone hitting a total of 35 rucks which is 13 less that all of coetzee, alberts and vermuelen combined, plus he still carried for 45m when all 3 of our loosies combined carried 63m
the guy is a dynamo! 😯
just had a clarification… apparently popping the ball down from the lineout counts as a pass… explains Kruger’s number
@Hammerkop (Comment 9) : @robdylan (Comment 14) : Please explain these stats.
Robs says MS alone made 92m…?
@Ice (Comment 15) : Hamerkop is basing his on other sites – Rob on Verusco. Big differences between Rugbystats and Verusco for Morne and Kirchner’s running meters
@Bokhoring (Comment 16) : ja exactly – so which one is right? I mean running meters is running meters…cannot confuse that with something else, can you?
unfortunately none of the sites are particularly good at explaining how they got to the stats they have.
I use Verusco because the teams themselves use the same stats.
@Ice (Comment 17) : I cannot see Morne having made 92 meters with ball in hand – so in this case I expect rugbystats to be closer to the truth
@Bokhoring (Comment 19) : unless Verusco includes the runs from the try line back forthe kickoff after the Aussies scored. 👿
@Bokhoring (Comment 19) : Same here – thats why I am asking if something else might contribute to ‘running meters”…
Sorry… I will leave it at that. Back to rugby!
This was our chance to beat the Wallabies twice in a season. We had it! We just blew it by stupid decisions and Morne missing his kicks (AGAIN!)