Try scoring statistics of major nations.

There has been some heated debate regarding try scoring during test matches, I don't know what you can take out of this, but here are the statistics of some of the sides and what percentages they scored 0, tries, 1 try, 2 tries, 3 tries and 4 or more tries since 1 Jan 1995.

New Zealand
Tests played 196
Tests with 0 tries, 8, 4%
Tests with 1 try, 24, 12%
Tests with 2 tries, 37, 19%
Tests with 3 tries, 31, 16%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 96, 49%

South Africa
Tests played 207
Tests with 0 tries, 28, 14%
Tests with 1 try, 38, 18%
Tests with 2 tries, 44, 21%
Tests with 3 tries, 22, 11%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 75, 36%

France
Tests played 201
Tests with 0 tries, 23, 11%
Tests with 1 try, 39, 19%
Tests with 2 tries, 43, 21%
Tests with 3 tries, 27, 13%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 69, 34%


Australia
Tests played 202
Tests with 0 tries, 16, 8%
Tests with 1 try, 38, 19%
Tests with 2 tries, 48, 24%
Tests with 3 tries, 32, 16%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 68, 34%

England
Tests played 189
Tests with 0 tries, 34, 18%
Tests with 1 try, 47, 25%
Tests with 2 tries, 34, 18%
Tests with 3 tries, 17, 9%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 57, 30%

Ireland
Tests played 179
Tests with 0 tries, 27, 15%
Tests with 1 try, 45, 25%
Tests with 2 tries, 32, 18%
Tests with 3 tries, 25, 14%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 50, 28%

Argentina
Tests played 157
Tests with 0 tries, 22, 14%
Tests with 1 try, 29, 18%
Tests with 2 tries, 31, 20%
Tests with 3 tries, 15, 10%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 60, 38%


Wales
Tests played 195
Tests with 0 tries, 25, 13%
Tests with 1 try, 47, 24%
Tests with 2 tries, 44, 23%
Tests with 3 tries, 32, 16%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 47, 24%

Scotland
Tests played 169
Tests with 0 tries, 43, 25%
Tests with 1 try, 41, 24%
Tests with 2 tries, 38, 22%
Tests with 3 tries, 16, 9%
Tests with 4 or more tries, 31, 18%


As I said, don't know what you want to read out of this, but there you go.

Cheers

Interesting Stats

Staaaaaaaaaaats

thats superb Biltong.

How the hell have Argentina played so many tests? And they've scored 3 or more tries in almost half of them...WTF

England seem to be the most boring side to watch, and Wales aren't as entertaining as they'd have us believe

Interdasting...

deadgoat wrote:How the hell have Argentina played so many tests? And they've scored 3 or more tries in almost half of them...WTF

Ireland seem to be the most boring side to watch, and Wales aren't as entertaining as they'd have us believe

Interdasting...

Deadgoat, do you not find hard, straight running and kick & chase entertaining?

It's very difficult to stop New Zealand tries

Comfort wrote:Deadgoat, do you not find hard, straight running and kick & chase entertaining?

Notsureifsrs...

I'm a Saffer and I've seen enough pointless crashball and garyowens from the Boks to last me 3 lifetimes. The "Wales are entertainers" myth has officially been busted

Good job Biltong!

While scoring tries is always entertaining it’s not the be all and end all.
Ireland v Australia was (and has been said by neutrals) an enthralling game, it had no tries but it was epic, exciting and entertaining.

deadgoat wrote:

Comfort wrote:Deadgoat, do you not find hard, straight running and kick & chase entertaining?

Notsureifsrs...

I'm a Saffer and I've seen enough pointless crashball and garyowens from the Boks to last me 3 lifetimes. The "Wales are entertainers" myth has officially been busted

Leave those fancy pants offloads and backs moves to the fairies, us welsh like to crash, crash, crash the ball at the biggest opposition forward we can. Give us big burly hard running men like powell and roberts, thats what we want. If we cant bosh our way up, we'll kick to the skies and chase it like an loose welsh cake.

crash, kick, chase, now thats beautiful rugby.

Well would you look at that those boring Saffas seem to score a lot of tries afterall

Bullsbok, as consistently one of the top 2 teams in the world since 1995 (when these stats start from) I would expect you (boks) to score more tries than most. Better teams score more tries than weaker teams. Or put another way, pretty much every teams the Boks play is weaker so on those occasions (95% of the time) you'd expect the Boks to outscore the weaker team. Therefore, you rack up the tries more than weaker nations! Same for the ABs and OZ.

On a serious note, how many SA tries came from forward drives? from relentless pressure on the lines at rucks, driving mauls?

Tries dont have to be entertaining.

The same way a game with no tries doesnt have to be boring.

Its all very subjective and comes down to what aspect of the game really tickles your pickle.

Personally, I love watching a shane williams-esque run as much as I love seeing Schalk Burgers complete disregard for his own health and safety at any point in the match. A game for all shapes and sizes, they even let folk with mullets play!

Comfort wrote:On a serious note, how many SA tries came from forward drives? from relentless pressure on the lines at rucks, driving mauls?

Tries dont have to be entertaining.

The same way a game with no tries doesnt have to be boring.

Its all very subjective and comes down to what aspect of the game really tickles your pickle.

Personally, I love watching a shane williams-esque run as much as I love seeing Schalk Burgers complete disregard for his own health and safety at any point in the match. A game for all shapes and sizes, they even let folk with mullets play!

Comfort I did that stat a while ago and it was roughly 30 percent by forwards, but I can't tell you how many are from mauls, the other 70% was half from first phase and the other half from counter attack and phase play. This is only roughly I can't remember exact numbers.

Biltong don't forget the Aspergers and OCD group meets every Tuesday at 7.30 - You missed the last one and I couldn't figure out why

I didn't go because you said you are going to miss it.

Your turn for the Samoans now Bilt - your boys fancying it?

Yes Rubyguby, I am rather looking forward to the match, hopefully we can get through that without any serious injuries, but it will be a good hard competitive match, I hope we can continue reducing mistakes.

I was quite disappointed today to see how many errors the boks made today with forward passes and knock on's.

I suppose they wanted to try a little too hard in the beginning, but as John Smit said they could compose themselves halftime and re itterated that they must stick to their structures.

Sa v Samoa should be a corker - Definately not one for the faint hearted. Wales going ok at the moment, good structure and discipline so fingers crossed for the Fiji game.

The good thing about our pool is there are still three cracking matches left.

SA vs Samoa
Wales vs Fiji
Fiji vs Samoa

Biltong the tries are scored by the one side in the stats are they? not either side?

Yes taylorman, I checked to make sure. It is per selected team

biltongbek wrote:

Comfort wrote:On a serious note, how many SA tries came from forward drives? from relentless pressure on the lines at rucks, driving mauls?

Tries dont have to be entertaining.

The same way a game with no tries doesnt have to be boring.

Its all very subjective and comes down to what aspect of the game really tickles your pickle.

Personally, I love watching a shane williams-esque run as much as I love seeing Schalk Burgers complete disregard for his own health and safety at any point in the match. A game for all shapes and sizes, they even let folk with mullets play!

Comfort I did that stat a while ago and it was roughly 30 percent by forwards, but I can't tell you how many are from mauls, the other 70% was half from first phase and the other half from counter attack and phase play. This is only roughly I can't remember exact numbers.

Sorry Bill, I wasn't looking for you to prove my sweeping questions wrong! jeeez!

More to prove a point that its how any certain aspect of the game can make it exciting, and that a large number of tries doesnt necessarily make the game interesting.

More of that phrase "horses for courses" for us fans and the action I guess.

One mans beautiful rugby, is another mans scrum re-set.

I think thats what I was getting at. I cant be sure though, that was yesterday, yesterday was a different kettle of corned beef.

Just to clarify Bilt, are thse stats matches with a given team when THEY SCORED 4+ tries or matches they played in inwhich 4+ tries were scored between the two teams?

Maybe this clarification is not needed, but cut me some slack as it is Friday!

Hi,Biltong interesting stats,but hardly surprising since NZ 76%,SA about67%,Australia,France,England about 56% over all comers that`s off the top of my head.Scotland is about 45%,Wales I would expect to be 55%0r better.Ireland somewhere between 45 and 50% win stats.
Since Rugby Union has evolved into a Union/League hybrid how many tries were scored on the 4th tackle rule.Oops,sorry the pick and go.{same thing different name in both codes.
If you want a rough estimate from the past,Ron Jarden in the age of reality scored over 130 tries.[retired around 1956/7].
Bryan Williams played the same number of tries in Test rugby 9 as Kelvin Tremain.and 136 tries each overall .Williams had one more first class game than Tremain.
Jarden was a winger in the Era,when Wingers did`nt score try`s,Bryan Williams a winger when the started too.Kel Tremain was a Tight-loose Forward.In the class of McCaw and Michael jones.

Would love to see Biltong the stats for tries scored within your own half or your own 22. Go on I. I dare you to find out.

debaters1 wrote:Just to clarify Bilt, are thse stats matches with a given team when THEY SCORED 4+ tries or matches they played in inwhich 4+ tries were scored between the two teams?

Maybe this clarification is not needed, but cut me some slack as it is Friday!

Debaters it is tries the nominated teams themselves scored, not tries per match.

deadgoat wrote:How the hell have Argentina played so many tests? And they've scored 3 or more tries in almost half of them...WTF

England seem to be the most boring side to watch, and Wales aren't as entertaining as they'd have us believe

Interdasting...

This was the first thing I thought too. When did they play all the matches?

Argentina since 1995 have played

17 tests vs Uruguay
12 tests vs chile
14 tests vs Italy
18 tests vs France
9 tests vs Scotland
5 tests vs Scotland
5 tests vs canada
11 tests vs Ireland
5 tests vs Paraguay
5 tests vs Romania
4 tests vs USA
12 tests vs Wales
11 tests vs england
3 tests vs Japan
2 vs Namibia
8 tests vs Australia
1 test vs Fiji
1 test vs Georgia
3 tests vs Samoa
1 test vs Venezuela
6 tests vs New Zealand
9 tests vs SA

I think anyone's try scoring record would show high % of 4 tries and above playing chile and uruguay 29 times! And Venezuela ?! What's their world ranking?!

Bullsbok wrote:Well would you look at that those boring Saffas seem to score a lot of tries afterall

I was going to say the same about Ireland for their boring negative, spoiling tactics who couldn't manage to get a bonus point agains the USA.

Are you sure they're correct, biltong? I can't believe the All blacks played a match in which they didn't score a try! Must have been a Northern Hemisphere referee who had a bad pint in Auckland.

Pothale, the amazing thing it has happened 8 times, and I am told lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place. but it must have been rain, hail sleet and snow 3 feet thick.

On a serious note since Jan 1995 it happened like this.

New Zealand lost 12 15 v South Africa Johannesburg 24 Jun 1995
New Zealand lost 15 22 v France Toulouse 11 Nov 1995
New Zealand won 15 11 v South Africa Christchurch 20 Jul 1996
New Zealand lost 3 13 v South Africa Wellington 25 Jul 1998
New Zealand lost 18 22 v South Africa Millennium Stadium 4 Nov 1999
New Zealand won 12 3 v South Africa Cape Town 21 Jul 2001
New Zealand won 12 6 v Australia Christchurch 13 Jul 2002
New Zealand lost 18 23 v Australia Sydney 7 Aug 2004


In their whole history they have had 43 tests without scoring a try out of 479 tests.

New Zealand v Australia 11
New Zealand v South Africa 15
New Zealand v Anglo-Welsh 5
New Zealand v England 3
New Zealand v France 5
New Zealand v Scotland 2
New Zealand v Wales 2

The Boks have had 61 tests without scoring a try out of a total of 402 tests

Thanks Bilt. i am actually shocked that Ireland have such a high percentage of matches with 4 tries. know things changed in the Pro era, obviously.

Excellent Stats work there. Kudos.

For those of you who found the try scoring statistics interesting, I thought you might enjoy this. Here is some more titbits.

I took the same period from 1 Jan 1995 to present. I took only the matches played by the historic top 8 teams. After all this is where we measure our true successes. I took only matches where teams scored 4 tries or more, and will provide you statistics of how many times you scored 4 tries or more and how many times you conceded 4 tries or more.

New Zealand
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 158
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 62
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 14
They score 4 tries or more in 39% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 9% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, OZ 6, SA 4, FRA 1, ENG 1, WAL 1, IRE 1

Australia
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 163
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 44
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 17
They score 4 tries or more in 27% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 10% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 10, SA 6, FRA 1

South Africa
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 158
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 35
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 25
They score 4 tries or more in 22% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 16% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 11, OZ 10, FRA 2, ENG 1, IRE 1

England
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 140
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 26
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 18
They score 4 tries or more in 19% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 13% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 7, OZ 5,SA 4, WAL 1, IRE 1

France
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 135
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 23
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 23
They score 4 tries or more in 17% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 17% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 9, OZ 5,SA 3, ENG 3,SCO 1,WAL 1, IRE 1

Ireland
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 115
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 14
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 30
They score 4 tries or more in 12% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 26% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 7, OZ 3,SA 3, FRA 8, ENG 5,SCO 4

Wales
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 124
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 7
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 43
They score 4 tries or more in 6% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 35% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 8, OZ 7,SA 10, FRA 5, ENG 8,SCO 1, IRE 4

Scotland
Total tests played in this period vs top 8 teams – 109
Total tests where they scored 4 tries or more – 6
Total tests where they conceded 4 tries or more – 47
They score 4 tries or more in 6% of their matches
They concede 4 tries or more in 43% of their matches
Countries who scored 4 tries or more against them, NZ 10, OZ 8,SA 5, FRA 6, ENG 8,WAL 4, IRE 6

Just some more useless information, enjoy.

Good stats.

Do we think any of the "4-try" analysis can be explained by the try bonus point in the Tri-Nations, and the lack of one in the Six Nations? If a team is up by 12 points and has scored 3 tries, in the Tri-Nations the team might go for that try to get the bonus point, whereas in the Six Nations the team is more likely to kick the penalty to extend the gap past 2 scores.

The rest of it can of course be explained by the SH teams routinely beating the NH teams (sometimes by cricket scores!)

I can't think of too many matches recently where England have scored 4 tries against historical top 8 teams, but we did it routinely at the turn of the Millennium, which is what must be boosting our stats. Off the top of my head we scored 5 against France in 2009 Six Nations, and that might be the last time.

We scored 4 tries against Australia this summer!!