The Six Nations finale in numbers

Wales clinched a Grand Slam, England bounced back from the near-dead, and Italy claimed a first win under Nick Mallett. A good weekend for some, not so good for others. But where and why was it so?

Wales clinched a Grand Slam, England bounced back from the near-dead, and Italy claimed a first win under Nick Mallett. A good weekend for some, not so good for others. But where and why was it so?
With the help of our partners at SAS Software, we have picked out the more salient stats from the weekend's clashes to give you the lowdown on where it went right for three teams… and wrong for three others!

Wales notched 15 points from the combined penalty goals shot for by Stephen Jones and James Hook, and one stat concerning the penalties makes a telling point: France conceded seven penalties, and every single one was in goalable range – Wales shot for the poles every single time.

France ought to have made more of the game, to be honest. They had 19 minutes of possession in the first half, where Wales had not even 9 (although this evened out considerably in the second half), and the French kicked only 18 per cent of their ball where Wales kicked 34 per cent.

Marc Lièvremont's men preferred to offload rather than kick away, the French managing 17 offloads to Wales' 5 and completing 151 passes to Wales' 81.

But you would have had to reckon with the Welsh defence, which missed only 6 of 128 tackles, and with Ryan Jones making a simply magnificent 20 stops. Perhaps, in hindsight, he could have been Man of the Match, for that is a terrific stat. You don't always see the guys doing the dirty work.

As far as England and Ireland goes, it was a rather stop-start affair, with 28 line-outs, 11 scrums, and 23 penalties. England had seven scrums to Ireland's three, which was a result rather less of Ireland's errors than England's forwards' strength going forward. Indeed, despite much superiority, England made 15 errors to Ireland's 11 – perhaps all is not so rosy (red rosy – sorry, Ed.) as it seemed.

Danny Cipriani certainly kicked a lot, handing Ireland 15 line-outs and a little more possession, but once again, defence ruled the day, with the English line conceding just one line-break. Neither side tackled too well either, England missing 7 from 87, and Ireland 9 from 77. England's line-out needs some work too, losing three from eleven is not brilliant.

Italy? Discipline did the trick for them, conceding only three penalties and no free-kicks compared to eight penalties and five free-kicks from the Scots. Beyond that, the teams were pretty evenly-matched, as the scoreline and nature of victory suggests.

Certainly the possession reflects the pattern of the game: Scotland had five and a half minutes more in the first half and won it 17-10, and Italy had six minutes more in the second and won it 13-3.

Defence, determination, and discipline won the games on Saturday. We wonder if the new rules being trialled down south will change this?