There were great performances by New Zealand and England this weekend, and Scotland won a series abroad for the first time. We give some statistics.

The scrums were not as gross as they were when Australia played England in Perth but in neither Australasian match could they be regarded as satisfactory.

This is how they look:

New Zealand vs Wales: scrums 15, resets 7, collapses 13, free kicks 4, penalties 3
Australia vs England: scrums 15, resets 8, collapses 12, free kicks 1, penalties 5
South Africa vs Italy : scrums 21, resets 0, collapses 2, free kicks 1, penalties 3
Argentina vs Scotland: scrums 18, resets 7, collapses 4, free kicks 4

25/30 collapses in Australasia - 83%; 2/21 in South Africa - 9%; 7/18 in Argentina - 39%

Results

New Zealand vs Wales, 42-9
England vs Australia, 21-20
South Africa vs Italy, 29-13
Scotland vs Argentina, 13-9

Sanctions

There were two yellow cards, both for dangerous play.

Rodrigo Roncero (Argentina) - air tackle in a line-out
Butch James (South Africa) - dangerous tackle

In this section we record the times a team was penalised.

* = points conceded

(i) New Zealand vs Wales

Total number of penalties: 12

New Zealand: 6
Wales: 6

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

New Zealand:

Tackle/ruck: 4 (Vito* 2, Thorn, Kahui)
Off-side: 1 (Ben Franks*)
Scrum: 1 (Owen Franks)

Wales:

Tackle/ruck: 3 (James, Gavin Thomas, Jonathan Thomas*)
Off-side: 1 (Gavin Thomas*)
Scrum: 1 (Adam Jones*)
Discipline: 1 (Adam Jones - obstruction)

Wales missed a penalty kick at goal.

(ii) Australia vs England

Total number of penalties: 21

Australia: 10
England: 11

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

Australia:

Tackle/ruck: 4 (Faingaa*, Brown, Ioane, Edmunds)
Scrum: 3 (Daley, Ma'afu*, Daley & Ma'afu*)
Discipline: 3 (Mitchell - dangerous tackle; Ma'afu - collapsing maul; Chisholm - air tackle)

England:

Tackle/Ruck: 6 (Lawes*, Easter, Croft, Cueto, Tindall, Thompson)
Scrum: 2 (Cole, Payne)
Discipline: 3 (Payne - punch; Thompson - armless; Hape - man without ball)

Australia missed four penalty kicks at goal, England two.

(iii) South Africa vs Italy

Total number of penalties: 19

South Africa: 9
Italy: 10

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

South Africa:

Tackle/ruck: 4 (Steenkamp, Undetermined - the nature of the infringement was unclear, Spies*, Ralepelle)
Offside: 2 (James*, Aplon)
Scrum: 1 (Du Plessis)
Discipline: 2 (James - high tackle; De Villiers - man without ball; )

Italy:

Tackle/ruck: 5 (Favaro*, Tebaldi, Pratichetti, Gower, Cittadini)
Off-side: 1 (Favaro & Perugini)
Scrum: 3 (Castrogiovanni, Perugini 2)
Discipline: 1 (Favaro - air tackle)

Italy missed a penalty kick at goal, Italy three.

(iv) Argentina vs Scotland

Total number of penalties: 18

Argentina: 10
Scotland: 8

The reasons for the penalties were as follows:

Argentina:

Tackle/ruck: 5 (Fessia, Tiesi, Contepomi*, Leguizamón, Albacete*)
Offside: Fernandez Lobbe, Ledesma
Discipline: 3 (Roncero - air tackle; Scelzo & Albacete - lifting legs in maul; Scelzo - man without ball)

Scotland:

Tackle/ruck: 6 (Barclay, Hamilton 2, Brown, Southwell, McLeod)
Off-side: 1 (Ford*)
Discipline: 1 (Kellock - collapsing maul)

Argentina missed a penalty kick at goal, Scotland two.

Tackles/Penalties

This gives the number of penalties at ruck/tackle as a fraction of the total number of penalties:

New Zealand vs Wales: 9/19 = 47%
Australia vs England: 10/21 = 48%
South Africa vs Italy: 7/12 = 58%
Argentina vs Scotland: 11/18 = 61%

(i) New Zealand vs Wales

New Zealand:

Line-outs: 3 (1 quick)
Scrums: 8 (2 reset, 4 collapses, 3 free kick)
Free-kicks: 4 (2 marks, 2 scrums)
Drop-outs: 2

Wales:

Line-outs: 12 (3 lost)
Scrums: 7 (5 reset, 9 collapses, 3 penalties, 1 free kick)
Free-kicks: (scrum)
Drop-outs: 2 (scrums)

(ii) Australia vs England

Australia:

Line-outs: 9 (2 lost, 1 quick)
Scrums: 9 (2 reset, 5 collapses, 1 free kick, 3 penalties)
Free-kicks: 0
Drop-outs: 3

England:

Line-outs: 15 (1 lost, 2 quick)
Scrums: 5 (6 reset, 7 collapses, 2 penalties, 1 wheel)
Free-kicks: 2 (1 scrum, 1 mark)
Drop-outs: 3

(iii) South Africa vs Italy

South Africa:

Line-outs: 13 (2 lost)
Scrums: 11 (1 collapse, 1 free kick, 1 penalty)
Free-kicks: 2 (marks)
Drop-outs: 3

Italy:

Line-outs: 16 (6 lost, 1 reset)
Scrums: 10 (1 collapse, 2 penalties)
Free-kicks: 1 (scrum)
Drop-outs: 2

(iv) Argentina vs Scotland

Argentina:

Line-outs: 17 (3 lost, 1 quick)
Scrums: 7 (3 resets, 1 collapse, 1 lost, 1 free kick)
Free-kicks: 6 (3 scrums, 3 marks)
Drop-outs: 3

Scotland:

Line-outs: 12 (1 lost, 1 skew) 
Scrums: 11 (4 reset, 3 collapses, 2 free kicks)
Free-kicks: 3 (1 scrum, 2 marks)
Drop-outs: 1

Stoppages (total of line-outs, scrums with resets, free kicks, penalties, drop-outs):

New Zealand vs Wales: 59
Australia vs England: 75
South Africa vs Italy: 77
Argentina vs Scotland: 89

59 is remarkably low.

Tries

This is the number of tries each team scored.

(i) New Zealand vs Wales: 5

New Zealand: 5
Wales: 0

(ii) Australia vs England: 4

Australia: 2
England: 2

(iii) South Africa vs Italy: 5

South Africa: 4
Italy: 1

(iv) Argentina vs Scotland: 1

Argentina: 0
Scotland: 1

Tries/penalties scored

This gives the ratio of tries scored to penalties scored by each team:

South Africa: 1/4
New Zealand: 5/2
Italy: 1/2
England: 2/3
Wales: 0/2
Australia: 2/2
Argentina: 0/3
Scotland: 1/2

The ratio of tries scored to penalties goaled is 12/20