OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
This is insane.
Numbers show All Blacks captain Richie McCaw remains a force at the breakdown
At the 2nd Bledisloe Cup game at Eden Park.
Numbers show All Blacks captain Richie McCaw remains a force at the breakdown
At the 2nd Bledisloe Cup game at Eden Park.
In his 67 minutes on the pitch there were 142 breakdowns in total, 68 defensive and 74 attacking for the All Blacks, and you would have seen McCaw at almost every second one.
He attended 69 of those 142 breakdowns, 48.6 per cent of the time, trying to win a turnover, tackling, running the ball or securing the ball for his side.
On defence, McCaw attended 28 of 68 breakdowns. Seven of those were as a tackler, with the other 21 in an attempt to win a turnover. That means McCaw was trying to win the ball on 41.2 per cent of breakdowns when Australia had possession.
McCaw won three turnovers for the All Blacks in those 21 attempts, but gave away the same number of penalties in the process. One of those penalties seemed harsh, although he did get away with other moments when he could have been penalised.
That's a 14.2 per cent success rate when attempting to force a turnover, and the same number when giving away penalties.
While McCaw only entered into 41.2 per cent of breakdowns on defence, he was also hovering next to the rucks and tackles at least 15 times, choosing not to committ.
The All Blacks contested the ball on less than half of their defensive tackles, preventing an offside line from being formed, and McCaw would often size up whether there were opportunities to win or slow down the ball before attacking the breakdown.
On attack, McCaw attended 41 of 74 breakdowns, seven as the player running the ball and 34 as a support player looking to cleanout the opposition.
When McCaw was cleaning out the opposition he didn't give away a single penalty, and the Wallabies failed to win a turnover when McCaw attended those 41 breakdowns.
That meant that at 55.4 per cent of tackles, Australia had no chance of winning turnover ball because of the presence of McCaw.

