There has been a lot of talk, after four rounds of the six nations, of Ireland’s game control through holding onto possession. I wanted to take a look at just how much possession they have and what this means for them and their opponents in a match. Firstly it is clear they are enjoying a much higher percentage of possession than their opponents. Below shows each teams average possession over the four matches so far. Ireland have 13% more possession than the next highest, England. They have over 60% possession in every match so far and France is the only other team to get above 60% with 63% in round 3 versus Italy.

Ireland are known as a team to play the ball through the forwards working the one out runners which could account for the high possession but it is a big jump even from last year. In 2017 while still holding the highest average possession over the 5 matches they only averaged 59.2 and only had over 60% possession in two of their matches. And even though England are third in possession their average is down due to only having 39% on their trip to the Aviva Stadium to end the tournament. They had superior possession in their other 4 games.

On that note though it does not appear to be any major correlation between high possession and winning matches. I believe it can certainly help but its possible to win with low possession and lose matches with high due to poor conversion rate. So far in the 12 matches played in 2018, 4 of them have been won by the team with less possession.

Similarly Ireland’s high possession in 2017 still resulted in two losses. None of them have hit that 60% mark however. In the last two years all 9 matches where one team had greater than 60% possession has resulted in a win for that team. This could be a significant factor when Ireland travel to Twickenham on Saturday as England will surely be ready for this game plan and not allow them to hold on to the ball as well.

The other aspect of this is how are teams using the possession they have. Are the teams who win with less of the ball being more efficient than their opponents. My calculations are only approximate as I’m using 80 minutes per match and not taking into account any time when the clock is in the red. Taking each teams average possession I calculated their approximate minutes of possession in a game. Then taking their points per game I calculated their approximate points per minute, which I’ll use to measure scoring efficiency. Wales come out on top in this regard scoring 0.74 points per minute (ppm). They’ve had two games with greater than 1ppm, against Ireland and Italy, putting their average well above everyone else.

England while holding the second highest possession only come in fourth for ppm which could be one factor leading to their poor performances. Aside from their match against Italy they have 0.29ppm, 0.29ppm and 0.37ppm in their other three matches. Of the 10 worst ppm performances this season only two ended with the team winning (Ireland v France and England v Wales).

Another important aspect of holding onto possession is the ability to wear down the opposition by making them tackle and defend. France broke the record against Ireland in the opening game for the most tackles in a six nations match (253). Below is a chart showing the teams who forced out the most tackles from their opposition in a match. All four of Irelands appear, three of which are above 200 tackles. That sort of tackling has to take its toll on an opposition as the match wears on.

Ireland are very far ahead of the rest in terms of how many tackles they force out of their opposition, 53 more tackles on average per match than the next highest team England. And while this difference makes sense due to the superior possession they hold by using the approximate minutes calculated earlier Ireland came in with the highest opposition tackles per minute (otpm) with 4.21. France were second with 4.16 while the rest all came in under 4otpm. Ireland are forcing this work rate out of defences due to their big ball carrying forwards that tend to get used a lot. While a team like Scotland who holds less possession and tends to play a more expansive game is forcing a lot less tackles out of their opposition. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages and it really can come down to limiting mistakes and efficiency.

What this all means going into the final weekend of the Six Nations with a Grand Slam on the line is hard to say. Ireland will once again try to dominate the possession game but this wont be as easy playing in Twickenham and England also looking to hold onto greater than 60% for the match. From the stats I have for the last five years England have never been pushed to make over than 200 tackles so that might be one area to try and push England to the brink. And being efficient with the chances they create could be the key to winning the match for both teams. And after all of that it still might just come down to a single drop at goal