Ja, no. That's cherry picking the stats to fit a certain narrative.
Everybody cherrypicks stats to fit a certain narrative, just some people do it better than others
But I get what you say. Even the quoted article that you refer to suffers the same problem. Its when you decide to base your game upon the stats and pick a game for the spreadsheet rather than the field that problems arise.
Stats is a good analysis tool, but it isn't great for predicting what will happen. It can give pointers, but the key is in execution. The team with the best statistician won't necessarily win, but the team with the more skillful players (those best placed to execute whichever game plan and cut down on the mistakes) will win. Rugby games are won more by execution than analysis, although from a fan point of view the analysis makes the game more interesting.
An important point about those stats, is that the stats follow the play, it doesn't dictate the play - and as much as it is useful analytics, performance indicators, etc ... those are good to track an individual play rather than a team performance. If, for example you have a line break on the opposition line, after a 50 metre kick giving you 2 metres to go and you get a try, that looks worse than a guy running from his 22 until the opposition team's 5 metre line and then giving up possession. So much of those stats are context specific and relies on another's mistake that you can't really build your game plan according to that.
So, low risk rugby will win far more often than high risk rugby, because you need a higher level skill set to play high risk rugby. Almost anyone can be drilled to be super fit, almost anyone can be drilled to have defensive discipline, almost anyone can be drilled to perform and execute good tackles. That's the easy part of the game and if that's all you have the talent for then you do that. You have one or two players with a bit extra skills (say Faf, PSDT, Cheslyn - even Willie on his day) and that's where you focus the offensive part of your game.
There is one metric that matters more to 99% of rugby supporters than any other -the scoreboard. I feel sorry for the other 1% because they're caught up in a world of idealism. The scoreboard tells the story better than any other stat. When the scoreboard says your team won, you're happy. If you don't like the performance you sound arrogant. If your team loses and you're happy because they "outplayed the other team" but for the scoreboard then you're a bad loser.But if you ask any professional rugby player or any other player whether they would rather play well and lose, or play badly and win, and you expect to get any other answer than a bad win then you have no idea why they're there.
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