Conspiracy theory?... Irish fans chime in? (long-ish)

[Mr Ruggleby]

I gotta ask - did you compile all these numbers yourself? I'm a bit of a stat nerd, and with the NFL, I can find numbers analysis of this sort in a million places, but haven't any idea at all where to get similar breakdowns for rugby... If you have a go-to site for this kinda thing, I'd love to get the link!

I pulled it from a few sources, none of which are anything special (espn/wiki mostly) - I 100% share your irritation that there isn't an accessible source of this kind of data for rugby. Also a big NFL fan and the difference the coverage (statistical or otherwise) makes in engagement is massive.

Would love to get access to the Opta stats or similar - partly just out of interest, partly for betting and partly to make a better version of Fantasy rugby!

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

I'm not sure how you see that? Over the same period (2010-2018) England have won 3 six nations, as have Ireland. The number of losses and streak length are fairly similar.

Looking at the specifics:

England won the 6N in 2011 after losing their final game prior to the tournament.
England won the Grand Slam in 2016 after crashing out of their own World Cup in the pool stages.
2017 is the only year we have gone into the tournament on a run of wins and then won (albeit without the slam).
Conversely, in 2018 we came into the tournament having won 24 from 25 and finished 5th!

But two of those wins are in the one win streak.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I'm not sure how you see that? Over the same period (2010-2018) England have won 3 six nations, as have Ireland. The number of losses and streak length are fairly similar.

Looking at the specifics:

England won the 6N in 2011 after losing their final game prior to the tournament.
England won the Grand Slam in 2016 after crashing out of their own World Cup in the pool stages.
2017 is the only year we have gone into the tournament on a run of wins and then won (albeit without the slam).
Conversely, in 2018 we came into the tournament having won 24 from 25 and finished 5th!

Ireland had actually won 7 on the bounce before the start of their 2015 grand slam winning 6 nations.
They had also won 7 on the bounce before the start of their 2018 grand slam winning 6 nations.
So if you want to talk about correlations between winning streaks and tournament success...

We lost to Wales in 2015.
Also the 7 game win streak before last year's tournament was very "Wales-y" England was the only scalp in that streak.
If I remember correctly as well England really felt their way into the 2016 tournament with a few less than convincing "tune up" wins like they had last Autumn, the Oz tour was their peak that year whereas Ireland ended NZ and English streaks on the back of abject form.

The Welsh are the best example though, they can go from horrific to world class and back again week to week, I reckon Ireland are inbetween the two

It's a nice idea but there isn't any actual evidence to back it up. Better teams just tend to win more, by definition in most instances. There is nothing to suggest that a run of wins or losses for England means anything more or less than it does to Ireland. If anything there is a slight slant in the (very limited) evidence to suggest that momentum is actually more important to Ireland.

My personal thought is that way too much weight is placed into recent results in international rugby when trying to establish a hierarchy or predict performance. Instead we should focus on analysing the players, the playing and coaching intent and the mitigating factors (injuries, weather, referees). Small margins can lead to sizable swings in final results - that doesn't mean they should be extrapolated as a trend immediately. It seems that the culture of our media and fan bases is such that everyone wants to constantly anoint a rising juggernaut or a sinking ship at the first chance, often simply because one or two blokes had an off day or a sore foot!

N.B. Obviously it is different when the issue is endemic e.g. the malaise of French Rugby that has persisted over a long period.

1st paragraph I'm going to have to disagree, it's purely observational with no stats behind it but I think English clubs and country tend to be streaky, it's an opinion and I don't think it can be proven or disproven without an in depth analysis into every game all their teams play so it's not really worth it! Perfectly happy to accept I'm not neccenecess correct though!

2nd paragraph is fairly bang on.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I think the idea of teams holding stuff back is a bit stupid. For starters the idea that Ireland were holding stuff back for the world cup was said last world cup. It seems they had got so used to hiding their tactics that they couldn't find them in time. Team may keep specific set piece moves in reserve but sport is every bit as much psychology as physical ability. Trying to intentionally restrain yourself and not win by too much or play too well is not a world cup winning mentality, never has been and never will be.

There are always freak results in a world cup but you often find that a common cause of favourites losing is that their heads aren't really in it and the occasion gets to them. Trying to hold back so much you start losing games breeds exactly the wrong attitude going into a world cup.

Also what have England revealed? Contrary to what people say, we have not actually shown our game revolves entirely around kicking. We have shown that the last 2 teams had a glaring weakness to kicking and we exploited it, differently against Ireland than France too. Think about it, if a side traditionally was susceptible to the ball getting to the wings quickly, would anyone say a team had revealed their cards by repeatedly getting to the wings quickly and scoring? It's about exploiting weaknesses. Ireland and France both had back 3's that had barely played together, so England had game plans to involved targeting the back 3. Wales have a reasonably strong back 3 so England may try something different. Also I saw an analysis video that showed against France England only tended to put the kicks through once they had forced the French wingers forward, they never did it when the French winger stayed back.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I think the idea of teams holding stuff back is a bit stupid. For starters the idea that Ireland were holding stuff back for the world cup was said last world cup. It seems they had got so used to hiding their tactics that they couldn't find them in time. Team may keep specific set piece moves in reserve but sport is every bit as much psychology as physical ability. Trying to intentionally restrain yourself and not win by too much or play too well is not a world cup winning mentality, never has been and never will be.

There are always freak results in a world cup but you often find that a common cause of favourites losing is that their heads aren't really in it and the occasion gets to them. Trying to hold back so much you start losing games breeds exactly the wrong attitude going into a world cup.

Teams definitely reserve certain moves for certain situations and scenarios, Ireland last weekend, vs New Zealand, and in Twickenham last year are examples of that, Schmidt has always been a bit of a master at creating, altering and recycling the right strike moves at the right time, there were even examples of it in the last RWC, England's first try in Dublin too. However, apart from a game like NZ where the teams are more or less cancelling each other or where it can set the tone early like in Dublin out these moves are more often than not going to make F all difference.

Also what have England revealed? Contrary to what people say, we have not actually shown our game revolves entirely around kicking. We have shown that the last 2 teams had a glaring weakness to kicking and we exploited it, differently against Ireland than France too. Think about it, if a side traditionally was susceptible to the ball getting to the wings quickly, would anyone say a team had revealed their cards by repeatedly getting to the wings quickly and scoring? It's about exploiting weaknesses. Ireland and France both had back 3's that had barely played together, so England had game plans to involved targeting the back 3. Wales have a reasonably strong back 3 so England may try something different. Also I saw an analysis video that showed against France England only tended to put the kicks through once they had forced the French wingers forward, they never did it when the French winger stayed back.

I don't think anyone worth paying attention to is saying England's game revolves entirely around kicking, its just currently the area that they're capitalising the most on. England won the gainline battle easily in their last two games, they have a great balance of strong carriers and good ball players which allows them to have multiple options as to where they're going to attack each phase, its more or less the same as what NZ do and what Ireland do with their own spin on things. The gainline battle isn't always the winning of the game though if you can't score, go back to Ireland's games in Wales and Scotland in 2017 to see that. So England's kicking game is being mentioned so much because its how they've created 66% of their tries and won their games, can they score in other ways? Yeah, but by stopping them scoring from kicks you're putting pressure on them to do that and it might be enough to win on a given day. Wales are going into next week as a worse team trying to get a scalp so England's obvious strengths are what they're going to try to nullify you and hope they frustrate you enough to sneak a win, I don't think they've really got the players to play the game on their terms like England currently are.

 

[Scotty]

Ok ill start with i havnt read most of the replies on here.

So far all we have really shown is our kicking game and physical defence, we kicked every chance we got and we have capitalised, we havnt shown our attacking game fully, we havnt gone through long series of phases, let alone shown all our attacking plays ball in hand. So we will hold things back and in reserve, if we can keep being dominant with the boot then we can hide a few things.

Im not saying it is our plan to hold back but our kicking game is going to well then we might not have to show our hand fully, but its going to be injuries that stops us in the world cup i think.