Inside The Numbers: Discipline
ByIt is a commonly held idea that in rugby teams with good discipline are more successful than those with poor discipline. On the surface this seems to be a sensible argument, teams that give away fewer penalties hand their opponents fewer scoring chances and teams that stay out of the sin bin spend less time at a numerical disadvantage.
Looking at six weeks worth of data, initially this seems to hold true with the Bulls conceding the fewest penalties per game and leading the competition, while the Lions concede the most penalties and are second from bottom. However on closer inspection, the Force are coming dead last in the competition but concede the fourth fewest penalties, while the second placed Stormers sit mid table in terms of discipline.
|
Team
|
Games
|
Penalties
|
PPG
|
Yellow Cards
|
Table
|
|
Lions
|
6
|
67
|
11.2
|
1
|
13
|
|
Hurricanes
|
6
|
66
|
11.0
|
1
|
8
|
|
Chiefs
|
5
|
54
|
10.8
|
2
|
6
|
|
Sharks
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
5
|
11
|
|
Waratahs
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
2
|
4
|
|
Stormers
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
0
|
2
|
|
Brumbies
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
0
|
5
|
|
Reds
|
5
|
50
|
10.0
|
4
|
7
|
|
Blues
|
5
|
48
|
9.6
|
2
|
9
|
|
Highlanders
|
6
|
57
|
9.5
|
1
|
12
|
|
Force
|
5
|
47
|
9.4
|
1
|
14
|
|
Crusaders
|
6
|
55
|
9.2
|
1
|
3
|
|
Cheetahs
|
5
|
43
|
8.6
|
0
|
10
|
|
Bulls
|
5
|
34
|
6.8
|
1
|
1
|
So it would seem that discipline is not as big a factor as rugby purists would have you believe. In fact so far there doesn’t even appear to be a tipping point where conceding more than a certain number of penalties per game leads to a lower spot on the table, with the difference between second and 13th being just one penalty per game.
Even with in a game conceding penalties is not a barrier to victory. In 21 games of 39 so far, the team conceding the most penalties has also gone on to win the game.
Perhaps the number of penalties conceded by winning teams has increased with the change of focus at the tackle this year, it’s hard to say as I don’t have that data, but the one thing that is clear is that there is no correlation between penalties and winning.
Similar Posts:
- Inside The Numbers: Week 3
- Inside The Numbers: Tri Nations penalties
- Inside The Numbers Week 12: Bonus Points
- Inside The Numbers: Week 5
- Inside The Numbers: Do cheaters prosper?
The Inside The Numbers: Discipline by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
