Article summarises statistics provided by Opta and some from Warren Gatland; with headline stats:
- This RWC saw fewer offloads per game than any other.
- The average number of phases per possession dropped to 1.8, compared to 3 in 2019.
- Ball in play time dropped marginally to 34.18 minutes / game - but excluding halftime breaks some games took over 100 minutes total to play out.
- Tackles per game have grown to 169, up from 129 in 2019 & 119 in 2015.
- Kicks per game (might) have grown, Gatland suggesting 57 per game, the highest since 1995.
- 25% of all kicks are box kicks.
It’s interesting that phases per possion and number of kicks both suggest teams are kicking for territory more and not keeping the ball for as long - yet there are still more tackles than before.
Even the fact there’s more tackles during less ball in play time is surprising.
Yeah its weird huh; probably need to see turnover stats (and what sort of turnover it is) to see for sure what it is. Also the more kicks was a Warren Gatland stat from the first few rounds of the World Cup, whereas most of the others were from Opta and cover the whole tournament.