Some Stats for the Season

[petros]

Yep, both those were penalty restarts.

At Allianz Park Elliott added 3 points from the centre spot while at Franklins Gardens Saints kicked to touch and scored from the resulting rolling maul.

[BG]

I wonder if teams practise what to do if they are a player up or a player down for 10 mins. The first thing to do is understand what player has been sent off for 10 mins then try to workout how to exploit the new available space or fill that space

Most teams can get by with losing someone from the backs or back row.. losing a front row forward is slightly more tricky

I remember watching Ice Hockey back in the late 70's or early 80's and CCCP (Soviet Union) would have a specialist team come on and know how to defend for their equivalent of being 1 man down for 2 or 3 mins. They had been drilled how to do this.

If I was a coach I'd instill it into props to go down at every opportunity to stall lineouts and scrums and waste time.. I know its not cricket but this is professional sport.

I'm pretty sure Sarries have worked this out and sacrifice Burger or Itoje to give away penalties in the red zone knowing that's not really going to effect their ability in the pack.

Conversely its up to the opposing team to work out where the extra space is going to be.

If a backrow forward is binned then look to see if the defending team choose to put a back into the pack.. (not Jonny May though) if so.. look to see where the space is that they've left.. if they leave it as a 7 man scrum then use the weight advantage to drive them back.