For the last 18 months South Africans had to listen to boredom about the ‘boring rugby’ they play, but Super rugby statistics at the half-way stage of the competition suggests it is in fact the Antipodean teams that does most of the playing, WITHOUT the ball.

When I started out with this column the point was to highlight how a team’s attitude can be measured by looking at their defense.

It had (still has) specific bearing on the Lions team trying to establish just what type of ‘attitude’ exists in the camp and how this relates to their on-field results.

Many coaches will tell you that defense and tackling is first and foremost an attitude an individual and team has, and secondly, skills and systems.

You can coach a team and individual the latest skills and techniques in tackling, and implement the best defensive systems, but if that team or individuals in the team does not have the right attitude to go out and show some balls, it is effectively useless.

With the Lions it seems to be a thing that has been coming for a long time, who can forget Tim Lane apparently telling Lions management when asked what assistance he needed to turn the Lions season around while on tour; “Send me 15 guys that can #$%$^*@ tackle!”.

But as I browsed the defensive statistics I noticed something very strange…

A lot has been said of South African teams’ inability, or preference to play ‘without’ the ball and banking on opposition mistakes to score points.

A tell-tale sign of playing without the ball, is of course looking at how many tackles a team has to make in a game when they of course, do not have the ball.

The numbers are fascinating…

Whilst Antipodean teams are far better in their execution of defense (tackle success ratio’s), there is some daylight between the amount of tackles South African Super rugby teams are making on average per game (not having the ball in hand) compared to that of the top Antipodean teams.

This in turn suggests that South African teams, on average, have far more possession of the ball and not only possession, but ball-in-hand (running) possession given the amount of tackles the Antipodean teams make on average per game.

The exception to the rule here is the Stormers, who average there and there about with the Antipodean teams – but with that it is also interesting to note that the Stormers are known to have the best defense in the competition thus far, and actually build their play around defense and defensive structures rather than attacking rugby.

All the South African teams combined makes on average 113 tackles per game. Important to note here is that the Stormers, with an average of 129 tackles per game heavily inflates this figure.

Individual averages are;

Bulls: 101 per game
Cheetahs: 118 per game
Lions: 109 per game
Sharks: 110 per game
Stormers: 129 per game

The top Antipodean teams (Crusaders, Chiefs, Waratahs and Brumbies) in comparison make on average, a combined 134 tackles on average per game.

Individual averages are;

Crusaders: 127 per game
Waratahs: 140 per game
Brumbies: 126 per game
Chiefs: 143 per game

So why do you only see two South Africa teams at the top of the log then you might ask?

Well the answer is simpler than you think, all of the Antipodean teams on average only misses 10% of their tackles, meaning they have an A+ average or complete close to, or over 90% of their tackles successfully, whereas South African teams most successful teams (Stormers and Sharks) average an 86% completion rate and the rest, miss just about 20% of all their tackles (that is one in every 5 tackles where the Antipodean teams miss 1 in every 10)…

So even though this proves that the top Antipodean teams are better defenders than the South Africans, it also proves they have to do a hell of a lot more of it than the Saffa’s which to my mind, puts this myth of South Africans preferring playing ‘without the ball’ to rest.

(Statistics from Verusco)