An All Black upset
Some scrumptious World Cup stats
After 48 matches over the last 7 weeks, and South Africa have been crowned winners of the 2023 Rugby World Cup
They won a tense final against New Zealand 12–11, becoming the first side to win 4 titles (behind New Zealand’s three tournament wins) and maintain their record of being the only team to have won every world cup final they’ve ever played in
New Zealand are the only team to have reached more finals than the Springboks (5), although they’ve now been runners up twice
How did the two finalists fare in the competition?
Neither South Africa nor New Zealand have been fully dominant in this competition
It is the first time that both finalists have lost a game before getting to the final, New Zealand losing 27–13 to France and South Africa losing to Ireland 13–8
On paper, New Zealand dominated the tournament, scoring the most points (336), tries (49) and conversions (35)
South Africa, by comparison, were a lot less creative, but still very solid. They scored 208 points and 27 tries, and weren’t in the top five teams of some of the main attacking stats (number of offloads and line breaks made)
They did, however, have the most tackles in the tournament with 974, considerably ahead of England who were second on 874
And in the end, the final came down to solid South African defence and Kiwi indiscipline. New Zealand had the worst disciplinary performance across the entire tournament, with 5 yellow cards and 2 red cards, including one of each in the final
And there has been a lot of indiscipline in general in this tournament. A record-equaling 8 red cards were given (the same as in 2019) along with a massive 55 yellow cards (compared to only 28 in 2019, and 53 in 2015)
Who else were the competitions winners and losers?
England fared a lot better than many expected, reaching their 6th world cup semi-final and only losing in the final minutes to a Handré Pollard penalty
This was despite their poor preparation. Their previous coach, Eddie Jones, was sacked 10 months before the competition (despite having the highest ever win rate of any England coach, 73%) with Steve Borthwick taking over. The change didn’t immediately change England’s poor run of results, however, with Borthwick’s England losing 6 of their 9 pre-tournament games in 2023
Following their run to the semi-final, England moved to #5 in the world rankings, up from a record low of #8 earlier in the year
Ireland and France had been performing a lot better ahead of the tournament, with Ireland holding the #1 spot in the world rankings
And during the tournament, the two sides were among the top of the league tables in most areas (behind the All Blacks):
- France scored the second most points of the competition, 238, with Ireland coming fourth (214), just behind England despite playing two fewer games
- Both teams scored 30 tries, the most behind New Zealand’s 49, and converted 25 of them (also the second highest)
- France made the second highest number of line breaks (55) behind New Zealand (88), and third highest number of offloads (53), after New Zealand and Scotland (58 and 55, respectively)
However, both sides only reached the quarter-finals despite their strong performances. This means Ireland has now reached the quarters 8 times, losing every time
Which players were the standout performers?
Despite being crowd champions, the South African team actually picked up very few personal accolades:
- Owen Farrell, England’s fly half, scored more points than any other player, reaching 75 points after scoring 12 conversions, 14 penalties and 2 drop goals, just pipping Thomas Ramos’ (France) who got 74 points
- New Zealand’s Will Jordan scored the most tries of the competition, going over the line 8 times, followed by Damian Penaud of France with 6 tries and then six players all on 5 tries
- One of those six, Henry Arundell of England, became the first player in 20 years to score 5 tries in one match, vs. Chile. Josh Lewsey (England) and Chris Latham (Australia) both scored five tries in one match in the 2003 competition, while the only person to beat this is Marc Ellis who scored six tries for New Zealand against Japan in 1995
- Both Jordan and Penaud both achieved the most line breaks (13 and 12, respectively) another example of New Zealand and France’s domination in open play
- The only other side to come close was Ireland, with Bundee Aki epitomising their performances with 81 runs made with the ball (only beaten by New Zealand’s Ardie Savea, 82) and 10 breaks
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