It’s time for part one of the inaugural Super Rugby awards based on the statistical performance across the season and finals to date.
First up, I will be focussing on the best and worst defensive teams and players in Super Rugby. Hopefully, this confirms some views and challenges others.
I have used raw data available publicly from here and then aggregated and analysed to form an overall picture of the top performers over the season and finals series in a number of areas, starting with defence.
There will be team awards and individual awards across these categories – some of the winners (and losers) may surprise you.
In order to determine which teams and players had the toughest defence over the course of the season, I looked at a number of factors, including:
• tackles made per game (individual and team)
• missed tackles per game (individual and team)
• % of tackles where a turnover was forced (individual and team)
• Running meters conceded per ball carry (team only)
• Line breaks conceded per game (team only)
I have deliberately not included traditional measures (points and tries scored against) as this has been reported and commented on frequently – I am trying to get to the root of the defensive argument – effectively making tackles, minimising line breaks and running meters and ultimately forcing turnovers.
So here we go.
Defensive team of the year: Crusaders
Crusaders were number one by a mile. They missed the second-fewest tackles, conceded the second-fewest line breaks, forced the fourth-most turnovers from tackles and conceded the fifth-fewest meters per carry.
While I am not surprised at them being a top defensive side, I didn’t think they were that dominant, well ahead of the Stormers, although that dominance was clearly on display in the semi.
If anything, I think the Crusaders defence is underrated versus their reputation at the breakdown, set piece, kicking game and back line amongst the rest. Because they do everything well, their defence does not stand out as much as other teams – particularly the Stormers, which need very strong defence as they don’t produce much in attack.
Defensive team ranking:
1 Crusaders
2 Stormers
3 Reds
4 Brumbies
5 Waratahs
6 Chiefs
7 Hurricanes
8 Force
9 Bulls
10 Blues
11 Lions
12 Cheetahs
13 Sharks
14 Highlanders
15 Rebels
The Stormers were let down by missed tackles and not forcing as many turnovers at the tackle – middle of the pack on both of these measures.
Importantly, they allowed the fewest meters per carry and the fewest line breaks. This implies their cover defence was outstanding to miss an average number of tackles but not see their line broken.
What is interesting is the poor defensive records of the rest of the South African teams – only the Stormers were in the top half of the defensive standings, as the Bulls were less accurate in defence than what I would have expected.
They gave up 8.5m per ball carry (versus 6.8m – 7.5m for leading teams), had their line broken 19 times per game (Stormers only allowed 13 line breaks per game) and missed 11.1% of tackles (an extra 1% of tackles vs. the top performing Brumbies).
For Tahs fans, which continued to laud the defensive strength of the team over the latter half of the season (including me) they were number five overall – only just behind the Reds and Brumbies.
Obviously, their defence was good but not great, and certainly not enough to make up for the lack of attacking cohesion against the top teams.
Now, onto the players.
Defensive Player of the Year: David Pocock.
Pocock is, unsurprisingly, the best defender in the competition. He made 15 tackles per game (only McCaw made more at 16), missing just two in nine games (just 1.5% of attempted tackles) and was generally a menace across the park.
He is the captain of my all-defensive team below. Add his breakdown proficiency to his tackling and you have, at 23 years of age, the cornerstone of the Wallabies pack for the next decade.
His work rate is immense around the breakdown and requires special mention. Pocock was among the first three to arrive at the defensive ruck, 14 times per game – more than one more per game than McCaw and three more than the rest of the pack.
Defensive team of the tournament:
1 Ben Daley (Reds)
2 Alex De Malmanche (Chiefs)
3 James Slipper (Reds)
4 Anthony Boric (Blues)
5 Sam Whitelock (Crusaders)
6 Adam Thomson (Highlanders)
7 David Pocock, Capt. (Force)
8 Victor Vito (Hurricanes)
9 Alby Mathewson (Blues)
10 Dan Carter (Crusaders)
11 Atieli Pakalani (Waratahs)
12 Tom Carter (Waratahs)
13 Jaco Pretorius (Bulls)
14 Sean Maitland (Crusaders)
15 Hennie Daniller (Cheetahs)
The only real surprise for me here is Atieli Pakalani. I am shocked that he only missed 2% of his attempted tackles, he completed five tackles per game (not bad for a winger often coming off the bench) and forced five turnovers at the tackle over the season – a higher rate than all other wingers by some distance.
One thing I can’t measure is the dominance of the tackle outside of creating turnovers – Pakalani is unlikely to rattle any rib cages, but from memory he tends to tackle low and apparently very accurately.
There were also very few standout defensive wingers (only Pakalani, Maitland and Luke Rooney scored well), albeit in a very difficult position to defend.
Players unlucky to miss out: Richie McCaw (Crusaders), Chris Jack (Crusaders), Warren Whiteley (Lions), Rynhardt Elstadt (Stormers)
In contrast, the all-turnstile team for worst defenders this season is:
1 Nic Henderson (Rebels)
2 John Smit (Sharks)
3 Jannie Du Plessis (Sharks)
4 Danie Rossouw (Bulls)
5 James Broadhurst (Hurricanes)
6 Colby Faingaa (Brumbies)
7 Chris Alcock (Waratahs)
8 Devon Raubenheimer (Cheetahs)
9 Ricky Januarie (Stormers)
10 Daniel Cipriani (Rebels)
11 Peter Betham (Rebels)
12 Benson Stanley (Blues)
13 Dwayne Sweeney (Chiefs)
14 Alfi Mafi (Force)
15 Julian Huxley (Rebels)
I am a bit surprised with Chris Alcock.
I generally like him as a player but come to think of it, he did fall off a few tackles this year – actually it was 2 per game – the most of any forward ex-Raubenheimer and Schalk Burger (but Burger did make 13 tackles a game vs. Alcock’s eight).
He will need to pick up the effort if he is the first choice seven for the Tahs in 2012. Lots of Rebels on this team is no surprise to anyone, I am sure.
So that is part one of hopefully several articles which use more advanced stats to confirm some existing views or challenge others. Part two (hopefully out in the next few days) will focus on the best and worst attacking teams and players.
Steve
Guest
It would be interesting to see all the rankings, is this data available
B-Rock
Roar Guru
Chris - agree with most of your points above. I think however if you include points against, you need to know what the cause of the penalty was - scrum penalties, not releasing the ball in attack, offside, attacking ruck penalties, etc as well as opponent kicking % all muddy the water when it comes to defensive skill on this measure. Agree that penalties conceded in defence are important but hard to get this level of data
B-Rock
Roar Guru
Chappy - To be honest I would question your stats. I would particularly question your analysis as the point of this article is to look at statistics beyond basic "total missed tackles" - this is overly simplistic to the extent that it not particularly meaningful on its own. What if a player missed the same amount of tackles but attempted twice as many? or played twice as many games? Surely this is important information to consider. To your example: Pretorious is not a good defender, but he is not the worst in the comp or even in his position. He did indeed miss plenty of tackles - 26 actually (good for ninth most in the comp - not the most as you mention above) but: - he played in all 16 games for the Cheetahs and attempted about 7 tackles a game, missing 1.6 of them. - he forced more than twice as many turnovers from tackles as the average half back - his missed tacke rate is 23% - less than Piri Weepu (25%) and Brendan McKibbin (24%), the same as Ricky Januarie (who got the nod in the turnstile team) IMO all of these factors are important - you can get very different results looking at simple stats but each to their own I guess
Chappy
Guest
Very dubious reading - As one example; Sarel Pretorius from the Cheetahs had the most missed tackles in the competition and yet isn't reflected in your worst defenders, so I have to question your stats or at the very least you r interpretation of them.
Chris
Guest
Interesting piece, but might I suggest that you might be going about things the wrong way round. The point of defence is to stop the other team from scoring, ergo the team that can manage that the best is the best defensive team. A much more interesting question for an article like this would be; What factors correlates well with the desired outcome? Looking at the Stormers for example, it appears that missed tackles are much less of an indicator than one would expect. Ps. It would be dangerous (and wrong) to only consider tries conceded, rather than overall points. Anyone can concede a penalty when under-pressure, but keeping teams out with good defence is much tougher.
B-Rock
Roar Guru
zhenry - I would argue that tries scored is an important indicator of defence but it is the end result, while tackling well and preventing line breaks (which this analysis is focused on) is the underlying skill required to minimise tries and points. Saying that, I will look to bring it into the analysis and see what happens - will provide an update on the defensive side when I eventually wrap it all together.
zhenry
Guest
The traditional measure of 'tries scored against' must be critical in 'trying to get to the root of the defensive argument', cant see why it is left out, in the end it is the final marker. The others are important (1 effectively making/missing tackles, 2 minimising line breaks, 3 running meters and 4 ultimately forcing turnovers) but they need to be related and backed up by 'tries scored against'.
JohnB
Guest
No worries B-R. More your field than mine I'm sure but maybe stats are more useful the further down you go into individual components of the game. So stats might be useful to look at (for instance) tackling effectiveness, and at each other individual component you can identify as being part of defence (one of which would be discipline I think!). You can then argue as to what weights to give to them in assessing "defence".
B-Rock
Roar Guru
Good point JohnB - agree with your sentiment that I am effectively looking at tackling. Happy to accept that while there is more to defence than tackling, its a pretty important part. I would probably look at tries scored rather than points scored given penalties are more a reflection of the quality of the kicker and the discipline of the team. I might expand this analysis when I ultimately bring it all together. Thanks for the feedback - this type of analysis is a bit of a work in progress so want to make it as high quality as possible, maybe even look at it next super rugby season and through the intl season.
JohnB
Guest
The Brumbies couldn't score points, but they also let in a lot - as I say equal 12th most out of 15 (so only 2 worse). In fact, they were only as bad (not worse) at scoring points - they were 3rd worst there also, suggesting they didn't have much of a consistent handle on either part of the game (attack or defence). I think worth noting that for every point the Waratahs let in (the Waratahs had the least scored against them in the regular season - 252), the Brumbies let in very nearly 1.75 (437). The Sharks and Blues also had a lot less (almost 30%) points scored against them than the Brumbies (339 and 335 respectively). The Highlanders were much the same - 343 against (incidentally I agree with your started well, then faded comment and hence my "to a lesser extent" reference - but the fact remains they had less than three quarters of the points scored against them as were scored against the Brumbies). I'm happy to accept that it's easy but not particularly enlightening to just look at the points for and against (demonstrated by my having done so) and that it's possible to come to other conclusions by looking into other statistics in more depth - but, given what you are trying to look at is effective tackling, maybe that's what you should be producing a rating for - the teams who tackle most effectively (rather than the best defensive teams)? Looked at that way, it might actually be useful for a team like the Brumbies to see that they were pretty good at tackling effectively, and yet very ordinary when it comes to letting in points, suggesting that there are other aspects of defence they need to really work on.
drop kick
Guest
The main point of defence is to stop the other team scoring points, particularly tries. Hard to believe those factors have been left out of this equation. The Stormers and Tahs rankings clearly should be higher.
B-Rock
Roar Guru
JohnB - I can say with absolute certainty that this analysis does not take into account all factors which show highlight defensive skill. The aim is to try to present something different. We can all see the points and tries scored for and against. While this is obviously important I wanted to go back a step to look a the root of the issue - basically tackling a player effectively. Agree that some of the teams defensive rankings are out of place with their position on the ladder but worth noting this is only one part of the story - how they fare in attack, at the breakdown, goal kicking, scrums, kicking, lineouts, etc all play a part (to varying extents) as well as defence in the success of the teams. Clearly, the Brumbies couldnt score points. That was their major issue all year (and the last few years really). The Blues and Sharks are both good attacking teams so will see how they fare when I get a chance to look at attack. The Highlanders started strongly but faded to become a one man team (Adam Thomson) by the end of the year - I would argue they were overrated following a strong start.
Justin
Guest
I knew Nic Henderso was awful in defence and this confirms it. I am amazed Vuna isnt in line for some sort of award :)
Justin
Guest
No because as you state he doesnt defend there :)
JohnB
Guest
Brumbies at 4 and the low positions for the Blues and Sharks (both in the semis of course) and to a lesser extent the Highlanders are the features that stick out. Given the Brumbies came 13th on the table and were equal 12th in points conceded (not a statistic which can be totally ignored I'd have thought) does this suggest you may not be looking at all aspects of defence in arriving at the ratings?
jameswm
Guest
And look at the two Reds props defensively. Impressive.
B-Rock
Roar Guru
Absolutely Correct, but some credit needs to be given to McKenzie for maintaining such strong team defence with a weak link like QC, even if they have to try to hide him.
Big Steve
Guest
Thanks BRock. So basically he still misses alot but if he gets there and has help he can get the ball. Its been said before, but if he spent more time trying to tackle and less stripping the ball he might make more takcles stick. It will be interesting what they do with him at WC.
B-Rock
Roar Guru
Here is a top 10 list of players with more than 30 tackles and 3 games played (made/attempted, missed %): Pocock (132/134, 1.5%) Philip Van Der Walt (61/62, 1.6%) Warren Whiteley (158/161, 1.9%) Ateli Pakalani (45/46, 2.2%) Calum Retallick (33/34, 2.9%) Chris Jack (65/67, 3.0%) Sam Whitelock (87/90, 3.3%) Matt Hodgson (162/168, 3.6%) Serge Lilo (80/83, 3.6%) He doesnt shy away from the contest either, as Pocock made 132 tackles in just 9 games, (14.7 per game), he is well ahead of all others on this list and only behind Richie McCaw (16.2) and Adam Thompson (14.8) overall. Note they missed 4% and 5.4% of their tackles respectively.
Wawnout
Guest
Re QC. I assume you have to attempt a tackle in order to miss it. That's why I'm not included in the stats. I'm sitting on the couch. On defence Quade is only marginally closer to the action than I am.