Stats reveal how England are actually getting worse - Beyond 80

Duhan van der Merwe’s first try against England was the turning point for Scotland in their fourth successive Calcutta Cup win, but looking at the tournament statistics we can see that England might be in a bit of trouble.

Van der Merwe went on to score a hat-trick as Murrayfield witnessed a 30-21 win against their rivals.

“That was the key turning point for the game because up until that point, England had looked to play with a lot more attacking vigour than we’ve seen from them for a number of years,” said Ben Kay on the latest episode of Beyond 80.

Beyond 80 break down Ireland’s performance vs Wales | RPTV

Ben Kay and the Beyond 80 team break down Ireland’s win over Wales in the latest episode. Watch the full Beyond 80 on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

Beyond 80 break down Ireland’s performance vs Wales | RPTV

Ben Kay and the Beyond 80 team break down Ireland’s win over Wales in the latest episode. Watch the full Beyond 80 on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

“It just got into the psyche, that element of doubt that they didn’t quite know what they were doing, maybe just meant that there was a hesitation. We started to see passes not quite going to hand, or up at a shoulder.

“We saw players hesitating on a line and that made it much more difficult to read for those trying to get them the ball and England just started to make error after error and Scotland realised this, and felt ‘We didn’t have to play that much’.

“You saw that a lot of Scotland’s tries after that came from errors from England and Duhan van der Merwe obviously the man that had an absolute field day.”

While England started well with a try by George Furbank, analyst Ross Hamilton explains that key statistics throughout the tournament show where England have been lacking.

“That’s the first try that England have scored from the first phase in this tournament. So yes that looked good and that looked sharp, but it didn’t necessarily continue that way.

“England have only made 14 line breaks in the tournament so far, only Italy have made fewer. Our [England’s] big issue was converting the chances when we get them. We’ve actually had the second most entries into the opposition 22m of any team, but we have the worst red zone efficiency – points per entry – just 1.75.

“So we’re making opportunities yes, but we just can’t convert, and that seems to be England’s big problem.”

Six Nations

P

W

L

D

PF

PA

PD

BP T

BP-7

BP

Total

1

Ireland

3

3

0

0

15

2

Scotland

3

2

1

0

9

3

England

3

2

1

0

8

4

France

3

1

1

1

6

5

Wales

3

0

3

0

3

6

Italy

3

0

2

1

3

The other big problem for England is their increasing error rate, clearly now a big concern for the England camp.

“One of the big things that contributes to that is the amount of errors that we made. We had 22 turnovers conceded, that’s the most of any team in any game so far, and actually we’ve regressed as we’ve gone on.

“Steve Borthwick talks about getting better week on week and the more we’ve been in camp the more cohesive we might get, yet we made 10 errors in the first round, 13 in the second and 22 in round 3. So we’ve just got a little bit worse as it’s gone on, and that’s been a big factor in us not being able to take our chances.”

Beyond 80 have done a full in-depth technical analysis of that match as well as the other two in round 3, which you can watch exclusively on RugbyPass TV or the RugbyPass Youtube channel.