Wales v England Rugby: Comparing 1983 and 2015

6247060739_576c096064_z

Introduction

I have spent some time over the weekend following up on the data provided by Accenture on the RSB Six Nations’ Rugby Site.
The data for the 2015 Wales vĀ England game played in Cardiff can be found here.
These data took me back to one of my early real-time hand notations of international rugby, the 1983 game between Wales and England.

1983

I have summarised my hand notation from the game in this Google Sheet.
I emphasise these are real-time data with no lapsed-time reliability test performed.
The game ended as a 13v13 draw (6v6) at half time. This is the ESPN record of the game and the teams. (Note a try was 4 points in this game.)
My data suggest the following from a game played on a wet day in Cardiff.
WE game data
I was very keen to use these data with coaches. I had been trying to get an accurate measure of ball in play time since 1980. By 1983 I was starting to be very precise with ball in play. I had two stopwatches running during the game, one for actual time and the other to measure stoppages in play.
I was keen to coach rugby as a passing game so quite early on in my hand notations I was keen to look at possessions and passing sequences.
These are my data from the 1983 game:
PSWE
I have retained my original hand notation from the game. I see from it that I was trying to record scrummage time too. In the first half of the game I noted that there was 7min 7s of scrum engagement and approximately 4min in the second half.
I was monitoring stoppages for injury and, in part, the low total game time is explained by the small number of stoppages to the game.
The scoring sequence was 0-4 (try 13.09), 3-4 (penalty 18.50), 6-4 (drop goal 35.30), 6-7 (penalty). In the second half, 6-10 (drop goal), 9-10 (penalty), 13-10 (try, 29), 13-13 (penalty, 32).

Photo Credit

Cardiff Arms Park (Walt Jabsco, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here