In our debates about the merits of winning a match scoring no tries, when a man up for a net 40 minutes, it occurred to me to look at the number of tries scored in WC finals. Here are the results:
All Blacks 8
Australia 6
France 2
Springboks 2
England 1
And yet we have won more finals than any of these teams. Anybody still confused about the dominance of defense and the paucity of our offense?
Nah….we had plenty of ball to construct a try. Hell Eluckmus only managed one lonely try in the 69th minute against the pathetic Poms.
Tries in the WC:
NZ …7 matches…49 tries
France …5 matches….30 tries
Ireland ….5 matches….30 tries
South Africa ….7 matches…27 tries
Scotland…4 matches…21 tries
…..
Skop en donder rugby, nothing to do with Fourie who probably improved our chances of scoring a try.
2007
NZ 5 matches 48 tries
Boks 7 matches 33 tries
Australia…5 matches 31 tries
France 7 matches….27 tries
Argentina 7 matches …23 tries
Oz and particularly NZ scored tries at a higher rate than the Boks, but we were ahead of France and Argentina. More middle of the pack vs bottom of the pack for Eluckmus.
Oh you mean like the 5 tries scored in 2015?
And Australia scored two tries in 2015. I actually think where we were in 2019 was about right, 2023 we had regressed to Bools rugby. Dull as dishwater.
...ignoring an important variable like the weather is rather odd for a statistician...
It was pissing with rain in 2023
It was drizzling. Boks/France 1995 was pissing with rain. NZ managed 221 passes, 460 meters and beat 37 defenders. More than the Boks managed in perfect weather against France.
Man this final is the gift that keeps on giving We'll be trading pointless blows about it until 2027.
A vokken win is a win is a win............ 4 x RWC............ my cup runneth over
I think it was epic.
I can't think of any 1/4s to cup run with as much drama. My word.
Would have been awesome if we'd played better rugby. One flashy try in the final may have been enough to console us.
Still that French game, the tries we scored to stay in touch, that was a great game. I think that had to be everybody's game of the competition. For me, Arendse put in a winger performance of the competition in that game.
The English game was kak but had a ton of drama at the end. The way that Eben went over against France was semi-repeated by RG and that won us the English game.
And then the final against the ABs had almost everything a story about a final should have. Big early handicaps on both sides and everything on the line. Nothing really going to plan for either side from the first second to the final whistle. The 14-man AB side garnering increasing amounts of support, and gaining confidence, as underdogs while the game wore on. A mega tight and controversial finish.
As a spectacle it has to score close to 10/10... from the quarter-finals to Siya lifting the trophy.
The quality of the rugby is a different debate.
Ja nailbiting stuff. But that English game was everything rugby should not ever become.
Some good posts on here… it was epic, it was nail biting, it is awesome that the Boks are clearly the best knockout team in the game.
But once all that adrenaline fades away, it’s concerning to see the direction of the game and more particularly of Bok rugby. We are the most winning team in WC finals but with the lowest try strike rate. What does that say.
And what do our eyes tell us. For most of the match we were kicking away the ball and defending. Is that epic?
As an aside there is a major controversy in golf today….they are planning the roll back of distance in the golf ball….to preserve the game and the old great golf courses. The ruling bodies get the traditions of the game and they are taking significant legal risks to protect those traditions.
Rugby is gradually changing into a different game and the Boks are successfully leading that charge. We play ugly rugby.
As amateur commentators on here we have a choice to be groupie supporters or to debate these changes honestly. I don’t like the direction we are going regardless of our success and I will make that point….often if warranted.
Spoken like a groupie. Perhaps decorate your farm with Pollard statues.
I'll take the win with a smile...remembering 1999, 2011 and 2015 were we narrowly lost...99 and 15 to the eventual champions...although 11's loss to Aussie was the worst.
2011 is one of the few cases I think we were genuinely robbed, the JDV pass to Lambie was clearly backwards out of hand.
...amongst other things...and the final had some issues too...and the Warburton red in the year Wales actually had a fighting chance...not a good tournament that year...
Mozz ie has not worked out that you play the Rugby World cup comp to WIN.
He doesn't have the abity to understand that there are various ways to do this and that folk appreciate the various skills thst are brought to bear.
Mozzie doesn't understand rugby and is not really a Bok supporter.
He actually thinks stats tell the story. Stats though don't measure guts and determination and how smart a team is at a particular moment. Eg Kolbr charging down that penalty on the France test
So much escapes poor Mozz ie whose statistical approach puts the blinkers on him. No wonder he misses so much.
Mozzie spent all this time since the Japan RWC win complaining about the Bok triumph. Now we can expect the same drivel till the next RWC.
Rassie Derangement Syndrome (RDS) has tipped poor mozzi e over the edge!
Hahahahahahaha.
There is absolutely nothing groupie about me and you know that
Damian heard that , Dave.
Mozart
Please clarify the following for me. In 2012 to 2014 the Springboks had a very poor try-scoing recod in the Rugby Championship and wih Mone at flyhalf. I at the time cricized te Spring boks for playing 10 man rugby with very few attacks by the backline My criticism of especially Morne Steyn who neutralized backline attack by aimless kicks.
Your reposne then was that the S pringboks were playing "traditional Springbok rugby" while what is requied fcrom Morne is that he is an ideal flyhalf and that 90% of the functions of flyhalfs is to kick balls. In fact the rugby played was Bulls Rugby and eyer was the ideal coach for that type of rugby.
Now what you defend when Meyer was coach and the Bulls were playing BS rugby. S pringbok rugby was deteriorating badly starting from the EOYT in 2014 and through to the WC. in the piod up to the Japan disaster match in 2015 the S pringboks one tests - one of those were aginst the A rgenina "B" team - th record was 6 lo/ses and 3 wins. They for the first time lost a home Rugby Chamionship test against Argenina.
Now suddxenly tryscoring is an issue and the Springboks are playing Bulls rugby. In any event your attacks on Erasmus did not include the tryscoring issue.was never raised by it - but crazy attacks on Ersamus were endless. After the 2019 the attacks on Erasmus wa endless and lies became the norm. Now the Springboks are laying Bulls Rugby.
our tryscoring fantasy is not at all an issue. `15 man Rugby contains a contribution by backline players and fowads combining into scoring tries. So haw many tries was scored based on that combination. Example - both forwards and backline playes contributed to the two tries in the 2019 final. So try again and tell us how many tries were sc ored by backline playes and how many by cforwardxs - but also referring to cass where both forwardxs and backline players combine to score tries.
Your approach is what I would call BS stemming from limited rugby thinking - so try again. . .
So were we a harder team to beat at Twickenham against the ABs or a harder team to beat in the WC final. The point isn’t that, with forward dominance you are a likely winner.. .that’s always true.
Games the Boks deem as important become arm wrestles….even against a poor English team. If we used our backs even our tactical kicking would become more effective as a variation.
We are playing at 80% of our potential. With backs like Kolbe, Willemse and Arendse we are more dangerous than most of our competitors…..but we only use those resources when we aren’t determined to win.
And it doesn’t work generally, we haven’t had a genuine RC/TN win since 2009, in part because our game requires massive intensity we seem to only generate in WCs.
Mozart
Are you nuts to keep spresding BS on site. I dealth with your idiocy in 2014 when Meyer said the Springbok backline players do not have the ability to play a ball-in-hand game. You agree at the time with that idiocy.
Now you refuse to even deal with the essential element of 15 man rugby and the role all players play in that. Both the triees scored in the 2019 WC final met that ideal.
What a farce you became over the year s - in 2014-5 you were totally delussional - now you are worse.
. .
No they didn’t meet that ideal. Both tries scored in WC 2019 showed superb skill from Am and Kolbe, but they were from turnover ball in both cases. They were not from structured possession ….the way the ABs, French and Irish do it . The biggest road block has been Dud Allende a man who can only crash into the first defender.
As for you dealing with anything….you have to be kidding me.
They do, that’s what the Sexton wrap around is all about. Savea regularly creates tries from NZ possession. France have done the same with Du Pont and Jalibert.
Other than Twickenham the last significant tries I remember from our back line off our own possession were in that brilliant test against the ABs at Ellis Park back in 2013. Habana scored twice from deep, and JdV and Willie scored as well.
Once again the data doesn’t support your argument:
……….
If we are only attacking on turnover ball we are limiting ourselves to only 20% or so of try scoring chances. The rest includes tries from lineouts. A study of the 6 Nations showed 32% of tries come from a controlled lineout.
So those two sources, turnover ball and lineouts contribute roughly half of tries.
We are all in on those two sources.
But tries from general phase play and back line play which contributed the other 50% aren’t a focus. We don’t have a forward runner of note, nor an offloading game. And our backing play ends at number 12.
We are significantly under performing our try scoring potential.
Mama mia
A duiscussion on RWC performances is now taken over by "proof " from Suprrugby. That I cannot undestand - is the new topic totally misleading or is it serious? The answer is obviously total BS
‘That I cannot understand’….finally the penny drops.
Sure - What yoi concocted is total BS
No what I did was look for studies on the try success rate from lineouts and turnovers. None of those studies took place at the WC….rather the Six nations and Super Rugby.. .eminently good laboratories to get an approximate value for those coefficients .
As usual you don’t understand, so you get belligerent and as the red tide rises you get crude and insulting.
Some people have a passion for learning, you have a passion for not learning. I can’t imagine how many stupid things that’s led to in your life.