Possession and Territory- the new measurement for a losing team

What I've noticed is every match the usual old stats are thrown up on the board. I used to think that when leading the stats on either territory or possession meant you're half way to winning the match. It assumes you're dominating the set pieces, field position and therefore have more opportunities to win the game.

Over the past 2-3 years I've noticed the AB's are often behind on these stats yet always ahead on the scoreboard.

What its illustrated for me is that actually the reverse is more the case at test level.

When the ABs use the ball, they use it to conjure up tries, and they generally get them quicker than most other sides.

Then its back to getting the ball back. Scrums and lineouts generally mean you get your own ball. The opposition, however, dont use the ball as efficiently and end up taking the ball up, and up and up, often getting nowhere, So 10 minutes of possession and territory for one side versus 2 minutes of the same for the AB's results in 7 nil to the ABs. Extend this out for the match and the stats are huge.

Last week against Scotland the Scots 'dominated' possession and territory and the ABs were forced to make twice as many tackles as the scots.

What this actually translates to is they are that much more ineffective with the ball. To do what the ABs take to so in 3 or 4 minutes, oppositions take 10 to 20 minutes, and even then might not get the 7.

What does it all mean?

Simply that there's not enough focus on the ability to attack, create space and rely on the individual skills to break the line. The focus on set pieces, the breakdown etc will only ever give you one thing- the ball.

Through these AI's some sides have had the ball for unbelievably long periods only to throw it away not really knowing what to do with it. In between, some tries have been scored admittedly.

But the sides winning today (other than those where for both sides the entire game is spent backwards and forwards doing not a lot- the Scot SA match today for example) are those that can break the line.

Easy to say you might ask. Perhaps not but judging by the ability NOT to take the number of opportunities available to some sides, the skill levels in the attack area as individuals and combinations is distinctly lacking and more time needs to be spent in this area. The importance of attack in a side cant be understated in todays game where defence is king and I doubt its given the attention it requires.

Yes, there are days like today when Scotland spend 40 minutes camped on the Springbok line and conspired somehow to score just one try.

It looked like South Africa had no intention of doing anything other than wind the clock down and defending.

There are a lot of stats bandied around that don't mean anything, or are misleading I agree. For example "handling errors" is often correlated to possesion and meaningless to compare individually "Scotland made 6 handling errors and NZ just 3" for example.

Or for example a player who constantly runs away from support (I'm thinking Tuilagi here), very high "yards gained" but to what effect?