In the past, captains have taken advantage of most opportunities to accumulate points, but more goal attempts have taken over. Photo: Getty Images/Nigel Roddis
Over the past few seasons, the question «why don't they score?» appears in my match notes more than anything else.
On Saturday, at the time of Gloucester's defeat at Sale, I rewrote it again, underlined thrice. In the first half, Gloucester ditched four great shots on goal in favor of a corner kick, a 5-meter scrimmage and a penalty, but none of them were taken.
Gloucester ended up losing 25 times. -23, after which director of rugby George Skivington gritted his teeth. “By rewinding a decade ago, people scored points,” Skivington said. «I played on the Os team, where Lawrence Dallaglio was always pointing at the sticks.»
Statistical analysis by Opta supports the assumption that scoring in English rugby has gone out of fashion faster than double denim. In the 2012-13 Premier League season there were 1121 penalties and 542 attempts, that is, two penalties for each attempt. With one round of matches remaining in this shortened Premier League season, those numbers are almost turned on their head: 320 penalties and 780 attempts. There are now 2.4 attempts per penalty.
Attempt/penalty ratio by Premier League season
It is clear that there is a large degree of bias in hindsight based on the outcome of whether the correct option was a kick on goal or a corner kick. This is something that will likely haunt Chris Robshaw, England's 2015 World Cup captain, for the rest of his life. There are many variables that affect the score, the conditions of the shot and the confidence of the attackers in their maul or scrum. If you're six points behind in injury time, and in a crazy game like the Harlequins vs. The Ban, where both sides were scoring goals, it wouldn't make sense to shoot on goal.
In the case of Gloucester, the decision is up to the players on the field to judge the progress of the game, although after their previous first-half missed opportunities, Skivington sent a message to Adam Hastings to kick on goal. “I wore the t-shirt towards the end, but for the most part they have a choice,” Skivington said.
“Luds [Lewis Ludlow] and I talk about it a lot. We're chatting on the field just to discuss our train of thought.
On Saturday, George Skivington stepped in to tell Adam Hastings to kick sticks. Photo: Dan Eastiten/Getty Images
Our sledgehammer was a pretty good weapon for us, and we thought if we could get it to roll, it would raise questions. themselves. It created a lot of pressure, penalties, but we did not score a single point.
“When we played Exeter here at the beginning of the season, I don’t think we hit the sticks once and we scored six tries. We supported ourselves. This is how it was today. We left three penalty attempts that we did not convert due to our own fault.”
Looking at the annual ratio of penalties and attempts, it seems that between 2015 there was a big shift. and 2017, and then again from 2020.
Skivington believes it was the «Exeter effect» as teams copied the Chiefs' pattern of kicking into corners and taking free kicks from close range.
>The team breakdown is also interesting. The Harlequins scored just 10 penalties all season (out of 92 scored in the opponent's half), while converting 76 attempts. Each team has scored more tries than penalties, but it is indicative that the Saracens, top of the table, have the lowest try-to-penalty ratio (73 attempts to 49 penalties). They also have the highest penalty percentage in the opposition half (47%), followed by fellow play-off teams Sale (35%) and Northampton (45%).Premier League team penalty option ( 2022/23)
This seems to suggest that more successful teams value the points on offer more. Of course, there is an element of arrogance in not taking shots at the start of the game. As Skivington says, you can create pressure with a hammer, but you can also create it on a scoreboard. There is nothing wrong with building an advantage.
Until we determine the expected value of a corner shot versus a shot on goal, teams will continue to rely on the intuition of their leaders, which may contradict what they see who are in the stands, as was the case with Gloucester exiting the European Cup.
“The best example I could give you is La Rochelle, where we were a point ahead and converted penalty. Skivington said. “Luds wanted to go into a corner. I radioed «take the sticks.» In my opinion, if you get four points ahead in a knockout game, that means they have to score a try to win. This is the case where I reversed Luds' decision and ended up losing in the last two minutes. There was a big argument on the way home.”
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