Insights to Rugby World Cup 2011 knockout stages

AUCKLAND: Rugby World Cup 2011's knockout stages will start this weekend with the quarter-finals that will keep four teams in the running for the Webb Ellis Cup and send four others packing.

So what will be the difference between the teams making their way to the semi-finals at Eden Park and those heading home?

History can provide us with some indicators.

Surely outright firepower is useful? You would think a team that can blow opponents away with lots of tries and a mountain of points would probably be a good bet to be champions. Well, you would be wrong.

Only once in six editions of the Rugby World Cup has the team with the most points at the end of the pool stage gone on to win. Interestingly, that one occasion was New Zealand at RWC 1987, and in that respect history has a chance to repeat itself as no team scored more in RWC 2011 pool play than the All Blacks' 240 points.

Defending champions South Africa, however, do not think firepower is necessarily the way forward.

Before the Springboks' RWC 2011 opener against Wales, assistant coach Dick Muir was more than happy to respond to criticism that South Africa did not play enough open rugby.

Clear insight

"You'd love to be scoring tries and playing a more flamboyant style, but it's about winning at the end of the day. Nobody remembers the tries," said Muir, giving a clear insight into the Springboks' priorities. "You're always wanting to score more tries but it's more about winning games than just scoring tries."

Muir's words rang true just days later as Wales came within a couple of more composed kicks of upsetting the 2007 champions. The Springboks eventually scraped home 17-16 and Muir's safety-first approach was vindicated.

With Muir's statement in mind, it is worth noting that all previous RWC winners have won all their pool matches, good news for RWC 2011's four pool winners: New Zealand, England, Ireland and South Africa, all of whom can still boast 100 per cent records.  Trading in tries and flamboyance for control and circumspection will never please the marketers, but it is a reasonable bet that Muir is not the only coach thinking that way ahead of this weekend's quarter-finals.

The old rugby adage of ‘attack is the best form of defence’ goes only so far, and the knockout stage of a World Cup tends not to be one of those places. Here, 'defence is the best form of defence' is more appropriate.

"If you have a look at the last six World Cup finals, only nine tries have been scored," continued Muir. "It's down to pressure and down to opportunities, the higher the level you get, the less opportunities there are available to you."

Balance is important

Opportunities are a two-sided coin, of course. On one side there is restricting your opponents' scoring chances, while on the other there is putting your own points on the board when the openings come. Finding a balance is clearly important.

That is something the Springboks have had considerable success with. Their two RWC victories to date have both come in tryless finals, 15-12 against New Zealand in 1995 and 15-6 against England in 2007 - clear cases of them restricting opponents while still managing to take their own chances.

Keeping things tight at RWC 2011 has not only given the Springboks those four pool wins out of four, but also the best defensive record from the pool phase - conceding just 24 points, 10 fewer than the next stingiest defences of England, Ireland and Wales.

Not conceding points is a good habit for teams to get into, as all previous RWC winners have been among the top five defensive sides at the end of the pool phase.

Those statistics could be a worrying sign for South Africa's Tri Nations rivals Australia (48 points conceded) and New Zealand (49), both exponents of a more expansive game, who possess the sixth and seventh best records respectively. Among the quarter-finalists, only France (96) have an inferior defensive record at this RWC.

Australia famously conceded only one try in pool play and none in the knockout stages on their way to victory at RWC 1999, and that after conceding just three tries overall, including holding an unexpectedly free-flowing England team tryless in the final, to win RWC 1991.

New Zealand's RWC 1987 defensive record was also impressive, allowing just four tries in the entire tournament, a far better record than their current one, with a total of six already conceded from their four pool matches.

Relative equality

If holding your opponents at arm's length is what is required to lift the Webb Ellis Cup, England are one of the best placed teams, conceding just one try so far, the fewest of all RWC 2011 quarter-finalists. It is a sound defensive record forged from their campaigns in the Six Nations, where they have conceded an average of just one try per match since the last RWC.

Like South Africa, England are also masters of getting the balance right between restricting opponents and taking their own chances. In the 10 RWC knock-out matches where there has been one try or less, England have been involved in six and won four of them.

The relative equality of the teams involved and what is at stake means matches get tighter in the later stages of a RWC, and the overall average margin of victory (14) is half that of the pool stages (28), and it was even lower (nine) compared to the pool (30) at RWC 2007.

This is all pointing to tight matches and, as Muir said, with opportunities at a premium accurate kicking gains far greater currency beyond the pool stage. With the exception of RWC 1987, penalties have trumped tries as the scoring method of choice in the knockout phase of every RWC, a complete reversal when compared with the pool phase of each tournament.

So, keeping the tryline intact, or at least almost intact, and a reliable kicker keeping the scoreboard in order at the other end, seems to be RWC's knockout recipe for success, and those who stray too far from the path could be the ones digging out their passports - or organising their lifts home. (Source: www.rugbyworldcup.com)