Eyes to the skies as 16-year high achieved in Italy vs Wales game

As a soccer-mad country, Italians are well versed in putting boot to ball and the country’s rugby team is keen to follow type, as highlighted by the Opta post-match stats from their 22-15 win over Wales.

The damp conditions at the Stadio Olimpico, on top of the pressure that both teams were under to get a win, dictated that the match was never going to be a great spectacle of flowing rugby.

But Italy and Wales almost took kicking out of hand to a new level with Opta logging 91 in the match. Italy accounted for 50 of them and Wales 41. Forty of the 91 were box kicks, with Tomos Williams, who’s such a running threat for Gloucester at nine, sending the most (18) into the rainy skies of Rome.

It was just the fourth Six Nations game to see 90+ kicks, and the first since the match with the highest-ever tally (100), which was another Italy (53) v Wales (47) fixture in 2009. Wales won in Rome that day, 20-15, thanks to tries from Shane Williams and Tom Shanklin.

Ireland, however, still holds the team record for most kicks in open play in a single Six Nations fixture, achieving 54 in a tough-to-watch 15-12 win against France in 2003.

All the points at a wet and windy Lansdowne Road that day came from kicks, with David Humphreys slotting four penalties for Ireland in addition to Geordan Murphy’s only Test drop goal, while François Gelez scored all of France’s points through four penalty goals in the last of his eight appearances for Les Bleus.

Despite kicking the leather off it on the weekend, Italy and Wales rank below England in the overall kicking stats. Across the first two rounds, England have kicked the ball a tournament-high 84 times. including 46 in Saturday’s 26-25 win over France.

France, meanwhile, have kicked for the most metres (2.086) after the first two rounds, their average of 32 per kick fractionally eclipsing Ireland, who benefit from James Lowe’s howitzer of a left boot.

Lowe is not the only Ireland player who can give it a good nudge. Using data from the smart ball technology in play during the Six Nations, the Insights by Sage document provided by the Six Nations after each round revealed that Sam Prendergast was responsible for the punt with the most distance.

With his slender frame, the rookie fly-half looks like he’d struggle to kick the skin off a custard. But in his Player of the Match performance against Scotland, he made a territorial gain of 57.2 metres with one monstrous kick.