All serious rugby students know the ball stays in play more now.
In the early 1990s, Test or elite club rugby sasw the ball in play for an average of about 28 minutes per game.
As fitness rose, passes went to hand more, rules changed, and referees employed longer advantages, the ball-in-play (BIP) statistics increased steadily to where they are now: 35 of 80 minutes, across most competitions.
In Test rugby, between relatively well-balanced teams, there is very little variance in BIP.
For instance, in the 2017 Rugby Championship, 11 of the 12 matches had between 32 and 37 BIP – the average was 34 minutes, 39 seconds.
The wild thriller between the All Blacks and the Springboks was an outlier, when the BIP was a whopping 44 minutes (macho men Kieran Read and Eben Etzebeth were the culprits, both refusing to kick the ball out in the ultra-long first half).
The Six Nations is often maligned as slow, trench warfare with a glut of scrums. But over the years, BIP has risen even faster than in the Rugby Championship, mirroring the BIP statistics of the Rugby World Cup. In 2017, the ball stayed in play for almost 39 minutes in the Six Nations.
The most-scrummed game was France versus Wales (20 scrums, which ate up 27 per cent of playing time). The least was Scotland versus Ireland (only six scrums, or 9 per cent of playing time). The norm was ten scrums per game, or 16 per cent.
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Last season’s Super Rugby had a BIP average equal to the Rugby Championship. In fact, only 13 games out of 140 fell outside the 31-39 minute zone of BIP: four were 40-plus (three of those mysteriously involved the Sharks) and the rest were 30 or less.
A disproportionate number of the sub-31 minute matches (five of nine) involved the disbanded Force, and the Reds also tended to keep BIP low.
The highest BIP (42) in the whole season was in the Crusaders versus Highlander tilt in the playoffs.
The lowest two BIP matches were both derbies, between the Waratahs and the Force (28 minutes each time).
The Stormers averaged the highest BIP, with many games at 39-40 BIP minutes, but in the playoffs, tightened up.
The new rules have actually boosted BIP, and when the Boks went on their end of year tour, three of their Tests were 40-plus BIP. Not a bad tactic when the visitors are on their last gasp in the non-aligned global season.
Playing high BIP when you are not ready can be a disaster, as we saw with the Jaguares last year. Knock-ons can proliferate, missed tackles cascade into points allowed, and as every ex-player knows, when you are tired, you become dumb (cards and penalties mount) and less brave (tackles missed, the high ball spilled).
The average BIP might be a sweet spot for the Boks, who handled the visiting French relatively easily last June in three straight Tests, keeping to 34 minutes.
The bad news for non-Kiwis? New Zealand teams appear to be comfortable winning at 28 BIP or 40 BIP.
DavSA
Guest
Only if it my team doing the rolling .
DavSA
Guest
Matfield made the observation that Marx is taking way too much time throwing the ball in. Interesting stuff.
Harry Jones
Expert
Kia K Yes, in 7s, the best teams often retreat—20 or 30 m at times!—to attack, later...
BeastieBoy
Guest
Scrums should not be counted for Ball In Play stats.The spectators certainly don't. The entertainment value of the games are woeful as is the crowd numbers. What should be analysed is the breakdown of the Ball not in Play numbers so that we can workout ways to reduce those elements.
BeastieBoy
Guest
Scrums should not be counted for Ball In Play stats.The spectators certainly don't. The entertainment value of the games are woeful as is the crowd numbers.
Mike Julz
Guest
I don't know about flopping over the line. Those mauls usually goes down because of collapsing or getting pulled down by the defensive team, which results in a penalty. It happens very often. It's the pressure of stopping the maul, because if you don't do something about it, it's a given try.
DavSA
Guest
Bip Bip !
Kia Kaha
Roar Guru
EBIH (efficiency with ball in hand) would be a useful statistic as well (though much harder to gauge). My impression with the breakdown in its current form is that a great deal of patience is required but also a clear plan in mind. Net losses can be excused if something good comes from it in the end. There does appear to be a lot of inefficiency with ball in hand.
Mielie
Guest
Very interesting Harry. Thank you.
wardad1
Roar Rookie
Had a bush turkey running alongside my car the other day .half expected it to go "bip,bip" !Yesterday was witness to a bush turkey in an antiques shop ,wasnt too bad until it got into a very small room full of crystal and china......
FunBus
Roar Rookie
Is it? So you think the rolling maul from 5m and flopping over the line is the epitome of excitement?
Mike Julz
Guest
But that 3 point penalty is to help out the northern hemisphere teams. Without it, they're nothing. ?. ? Na yea agree on your point. The three point penalty does use up a lot of time. Teams tend to use it as easy points. They milk penalties as you said in scrums just to get three points. Its useful when you're catching up tho, and some teams use it to run out clock. Last nights game between Blues and Highlanders they went for the touchline instead of the 3. Thats what we all wanted.
Malo
Guest
Make it a 15 man game not a 23 man game , so fitness is tested.
rugger
Guest
World Rugby has stop clock in 7s including yellow card for kicking ball away. Why do we have to do through endless scrums...need stop clock on this farce. And to get 40 minutes BIP in 80 minutes is ridiculous. Player welfare will increase if World Rugby can get BIP up because aerobic fitness will improve therefore size less important and skill main factor. Except World Rugby will not act to fasten game up as home nations do not have skill and x-factor to play this game.
DaveJ
Guest
Too many penalty goals as well. Which encourages all the machinations and resets at scrum time. And creates the ridiculous imbalance in rewarding skill, eg 3 points for a kick from 50 metres out for a technical offence vs 5 for a brilliant team try in the corner. And penalty goals being awarded most of the time essentially because one team wins the scrum, forcing a collapse that is hard to avoid. You don’t get a penalty for winning a lineout! If the main reward of winning a scrum became getting the ball out in an advantageous position, it would restore some sanity and waste less time.
In Brief
Guest
Not sure if I've seen Australian teams play much worse, ever. The fifth team was never the issue - that was just a lie as we are about to find out.
In Brief
Guest
Obviously you don't actually watch rugby
Mike Julz
Guest
The time wasters in rugby - Scrum resetting Goal kick after a try Ref calling a penalty while the captain decides Ref calling for a scrum Lineouts resetting They should stop the clock for the first two, after resetting the scrum, and a after a try is scored, start the time again after kick off. But nice read there on BIP.
Bob Wire
Guest
Does BIP relate to BOS?
Harry Jones
Expert
Yes. That is BIP. If we take an average BIP game (Stormers v Jaguares in Round 1, which was 33 minutes) and we note that it was a low-kicking match (STO kicked 15 times and JAG only 10), we can exempt that from a "they just kicked a lot" issue. I'll try to find cross-references like that.