2012 Six Nations - Scotland v England

2012 Six Nations - France v Italy

Welcome back ... its Statto Time!

The Six Nations for 2012 is underway “Up North, Up North”, so while Ferdy is soaking it up in the pubs, I’ll wheel out some more graphical stat summaries for the tourney after reading the papers hours later

Things have been tweaked a little. I have changed sources for the 6N to use espnscrum.com and the Official RBS Six Nations site ... so blame them for interpretations, not me.

First blood to France. Which is nice ... I mean it must be nice to win something for a change.

Tri Nations Finale Statto

RWC 2011 Squad Experience - All Nations

I need to get a life - but it was either do this or watch ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’. Again.

So here it is: a visual representation of which countries have the most World Cup experience. Light blue is 2011, green is 2007 (France) and dark blue is 2003 (Australia). More layers means more RWC depth, just like compost ... and while its no surprise to anyone that South Africa look to have a tonne of experience, its surprising to see some of the lesser teams match up, like Italy, Romania and even Georgia.

Ireland, New Zealand and France don’t do too badly either.

If you click on the image you should be able to download an A1 sized jpeg of it - its big I know ... bu it is the World Cup.

All Black RWC 2011 Squad World Cup Experience

Been there, done that ... but only got the t-shirt to show for it. Looking at the squad, this radial graphic shows which All Blacks have played at a World Cup before, and therefore where our core layers of experience lie.

What do you think? Any surprises in this for you? Remember Corey Flynn in 2003? No, Neither do I.

Going to work on doing these for all 20 squads - at time of posting 2-3 countries have still to announce their squads before the deadline.

South Africa v Australia - 13 July 2011

It took a few days, but here are the visual numbers. Another tight game where no one seemed to get the upper hand in set pieces - perhaps a victory for Aussie there. The Boks just couldn’t get the edge, though the TMO denied Fourie by the slimmest of margins. Both sides goal kicking also looked rusty which kept a few points off the scoreboard.

For me, that Aussie midfield pulled off some mean tackling. I have been quite non-plussed with their midfield - Ashley-Cooper is no Mortlock for me, and 12-13 just seemed to be an offensive weakness. Last weekend they just got on with it. The thing I like is that while all the hot doggin outside backs and Quade Coopers of this world get all the Twitter follows and press column inches ... a bloke like Pat McCabe is quietly going about his job and getting better each week.

South Africa? Who knows? This could be such a different team, and maybe from next year it will start to rebuild around the youngsters liek Broussow, Aplon, Lambie etc. But for now it looks like P Divvy will simply revert to type, with Morne Steyn behind a big, big, hungry pack. And you know what? ... in a drag down, bar brawl of a semi, who knows ... its worked for them before.

This weekend our B team(?) takes on the Boks and its X Factor in more ways than one: Jane, Kahui, Toeava may all get last chances to shine before the squad of 30 is picked next week. However, the Last Chance Saloon should surely also be observing Sonny Bill Williams. He needs a special game this weekend. As of yet I don’t think he has done enough in the Test arena to warrant the selection everyone else thinks he deserves.

Nonu is a better 12, Smith a better centre, Toeava & Kahui can cover fullback and wing between them ... as can Corey Jane. SBW is a devastating player, but seriously, in a big knockout match, on defence, with that tendency to fly in with no hands ... the cards may come out. Good luck to him though.

Go the All Blacks.

3N Match 2: NZ v SA Stats

See Ferdy’s post on the match here, but the numbers are in: after scouring the interweb, I have cobbled together stats to illustrate what amounts to set piece dominance by the All Blacks. Baby Boks or not, they got served.

As usual, you can click on the above image to get a larger sized version.

Tri Nations First Blood

Apologies for incompleteness - Sky TV here in NZ ended their coverage before I could see Fox’s stats for Terrirtory & Possession for the whole game. Must sort a way of getting all the numbers. Still, here’s the numbers ...

Stat Attack

Okay - time to apply some polish to the post-match analysis ... it’s infographic time! Gonna try to do this for each of 3N and RWC games. Will be a lot of work, but really it’s just putting Sky TV’s figures into a more visually appealing format. What do you think? 

You can click on the graphic to download a larger version of it.

Tried to find a spanner or similar tool for Dickinson’s effort, but had no time. I thought he was as rusty and indirect as the All Blacks. Still, a win is a win. The Springboks (even a part 2nd XV) will be much, much, much tougher - I hope we step up to it.