LONG READ Irish lose control; Welsh attack progresses; Springboks dominate: Standout stats - week 4

England v Argentina effectively brought the curtain down on the 2025 Quilter Nation Series – with the exception of this Saturday’s hard-to-justify Wales v South Africa match.

There have been two clear autumn winners – South Africa and England. But behind them, a number of teams have had quietly successful autumns as the World Cup cycle begins to ramp up.

Stat of the Week: Ireland spent just 38 minutes with 15 players on the pitch in their final autumn game against South Africa.

One team who appear to be on the wane are Ireland. They book-ended their four-game autumn series with losses to New Zealand and South Africa, managing to score just 13 points in both.

In between, they handily beat both Australia and Japan, scoring over 40 points in each Test.

Against New Zealand they spent just 78 minutes with a full complement, though Tadhg Beirne’s red card was later rescinded. Regardless, against the All Blacks and Springboks they struggled to maintain discipline, conceding a frankly astonishing 29 penalties and losing 32 turnovers. That speaks of a lack of control which is concerning, as Ireland built their recent rise on exceptional control which smothered their opponents.

In the second half against South Africa, Ireland struggled to even escape their half, let alone put pressure on the Boks in their 22. Across the game, Ireland had 46% of their possession within their own half, compared to just 28% for the Boks. Against New Zealand they had 40% there. Both are figures which are much too high for a side looking to challenge the top teams.

Against South Africa, Ireland kicked 29 times. It was 31 when facing the All Blacks. This isn’t a side that is looking to play an all-court game and run the ball from anywhere, like the Bristol Bears. They are looking to kick when they are in these positions. It’s just that as soon as they kick, the pressure comes straight back on them either through the counter-attack or through a penalty, which their opponents kick to touch deep in the Irish half. On Saturday, Ireland stayed in the game through their turnovers (they won eight to South Africa’s four) but they were only hanging on, not gaining any footholds that could worry the Springboks.

It might be that this Ireland team have been found out against the best opponents… it does suggest a slide for a team who have their sights on the world number one spot.

As always, this told in the most important stat of them all, 22-entries. It is possible to score just 13 points against some opponents through luck. Maybe you tried everything and still couldn’t break down the defence, or you fluffed a few chances. That isn’t the case for Ireland.

In the two games against South Africa and New Zealand, they averaged 5.5 entries into the opposition 22 and 1.3 points per entry – a rough target would be nine or 10 entries per game and 2.8 points per entry. When Ireland played Australia, by comparison they managed 12 entries and 3.8 points per entry. It might be that this Ireland team have been found out against the best opponents. That’s not disastrous as you’d rather be beating weaker teams well as you look to rebuild and challenge the best of the best, but it does suggest a slide for a team who have their sights on the world number one spot.

Wales attack rising despite leaky defence

After Wales lost 45-12 to the Springboks last year, there was consternation at the reaction of the South African players and coaches. The response was that Wales had been brave and given a good account of themselves. That seemed to be reflected by some of the public reaction. That grated for me. There is a certain level expected of a Welsh rugby team and that’s not met by simply being on the pitch and making some tackles. We are in danger of repeating those same platitudes this autumn.

Wales will almost certainly end their campaign with three losses and a win and I would predict a points difference of somewhere near -20 points per match. They beat Japan with a last-minute kick when the visitors were, it later transpired, wrongly down to 14. They allowed Argentina to score 50+ points against them. Those are the issues. But even so, it’s hard to see this as anything other than a slightly more positive set of fixtures than we might have previously predicted. I doubt the WRU will use that in their marketing for the Six Nations though. The reasons for optimism come from that attack.

Wales have achieved more than 4 points per 22-entry in two matches and more than 3 points in all their matches so far. Against New Zealand, they had eight entries and 3.2 points per entry, a return that Ireland would have killed for. With 90 fewer carries than New Zealand, they managed just one less line-break, They had a ruck speed of three seconds-or-less in over 60% of rucks against both Japan and Argentina. It was a respectable 55% against New Zealand. It has been quicker than their opponents in every match.

The proof of this pudding has been in the points scoring. Wales managed to score more than 20 points in just one of their five Six Nations matches earlier this year (a final-quarter rally against Scotland from 35-8 down to lose 35-29). Tack on their first summer Test against Japan and it was one in six. Since then, it’s been four in four. That has given Wales a chance in matches which previously they wouldn’t have been remotely in.

Defensively they are in no better or worse a spot than they were before, but the attack has stepped up. It may be a fairly meagre piece of positivity, but that is the definition of progress.

New Zealand stretched their legs fairly comfortably in the last half-hour but they were just three points ahead – 24-21 – after 43 minutes. That is remarkable given the pre-match expectations. You may well point to the fact that all this is for nothing if they continue conceding twice the number of points they score, but that isn’t a new issue. They conceded 43 points against France, 27 against Ireland, 35 against Scotland and, of course, 68 against England. Defensively they are in no better or worse a spot than they were before, but the attack has stepped up. It may be a fairly meagre piece of positivity, but that is the definition of progress.

Boks dominate to earn likely clean sweep

The Springboks are on for an autumn clean sweep, and as stated above, I don’t see Wales stopping that. But the way they have done it has been exceptional. They have trailed for just 62 minutes of the 320 they have played so far – all against France.

RugbyPass provides post-match win probabilities which look at the raw stats and judges who was more likely to have won. When they played Japan for example, it said South Africa had a 95% chance of winning based on the stats (and of course they did, 61-7).

The only game where South Africa had a lower than 70% post-match win probability was against France (it was 53%, with a 1% chance of a draw). South Africa haven’t just stitched together a series of wins, they have dominated all before them as they’ve navigated a tricky set of matches.