PHILADELPHIA, PA – We’ve had 4 rounds of the Americas Rugby Championship, which means 12 matches. As the final weekend is all but upon us, here is a look at some ARC stats.
Scrums
There have been 187 scrums (close to 16 a match). 57% of scrums have been completed (played by one team or the other). This is a lower rate than the World Cup. That surprises me since, for the most part, the matches haven’t seemed to lose lots of times to scrums. Canada, with its desire to get the ball to the 8 and out as quickly as possible has done well enough at scrum time. Chile’s high rate of successful scrums is a big surprise. A successful scrum is one in which the attacking side wins the ball, free kick, or penalty. Uruguay, though, won more penalties from scrums and also scored 2 penalty tries from scrums.
For all sides, 81% of completed scrums were played by the 8 man rather than the scrum half.
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Here is a look at how destructive the different scrums were on their opponents’ put in. From a defensive perspective, a low number is good, and Uruguay had the best scrum with their opponents only having a successful outcome 67% of the time.
Indicative of their loose play at times, Argentina had the most defensive scrums, but has been able to win the most penalties from those defensive scrums.
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Lineouts
Looking at attacking lineouts, things are much better for USA. The Eagles and Brazil are both at the top of the attacking lineout rates. The USA can, at least for the moment, claim the best lineout because of accuracy inside 30 meters – 1 throw lost in 30 attempts.
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For defensive lineouts, Argentina’s pack has been the most disruptive. They’ve stolen 14 lineouts, twice as many as Brazil. Again, a low rate of success in this table is good.
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Tries
There have been a lot of tries – the tournament is averaging over 7 tries a match. Nearly 40% of tries came from possessions that started from lineouts. Scrum possessions accounted for the next biggest total (17), but was still only half the lineout number (34). The third largest try source was turnovers (12).
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33 of the 87 tries came from first phase, which works out to 38%.
Penalties
Argentina has committed the most penalties overall, but they are the only side who committed fewer penalties inside their defensive half (closer to the try line they are defending) than inside their attacking half.
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Goal Kicking
Straight percentage is not the best measurement of goal kicking, but it is a place to start. The goal kicking in the ARC has not been great, but Brazil has been the best side overall.
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All of this information, plus more details relating to territory and penalty decisions, will be updated in another post next week.
