This year’s Tri-nations had the highest average of tries per game in more than a decade and saw a dramatic reduction in tactical kicking, according to an International Rugby Board (IRB) report released yesterday.
The 52 tries scored over nine matches played between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa was almost double the tally for last year’s tournament and compared favorably with the 3.2 tries per match in the Northern Hemisphere’s Six Nations.
TRIUMPH
The statistics will be seen as a triumph for new rules governing the breakdown, which were aimed at improving the attacking team’s ability to recycle the ball quickly at the tackle and keep the action flowing.
The increase bucked a trend of a 60 percent to 70 percent reduction in the number of tries scored over the last 10 years in the two major annual international rugby tournaments, the report said.
Another encouraging trend, it said, was the decrease in the proportion of tries to penalty kicks, from 2.5 kicks to one try last year to near parity this year.
The increasing influence of goal kicking in rugby has long been one of the main complaints of mainly Southern Hemisphere critics of the trends in the international game.
POSSESSION KEY
Those same critics would also have been delighted with the reduction in kicking in general, almost certainly a result of the importance of retaining possession under the new rules.
There was an average of just 37 kicks from hand per match compared to 60 in earlier years, the report said, with one match featuring just a single punt from a player who was not under pressure.
An illustration of the dangers of aimless punting down the field came in the report’s analysis of each team’s play during the tournament.
The All Blacks, who won the Tri-nations unbeaten and will be favorites to win the World Cup on home soil next year, scored 50 percent of their 22 tries in the tournament from possession obtained in their own half.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but