Smurf’s Statto Saintly Season Summary

OK, after a record-smashing season last year in ND1 we returned to play with the big boys. No records to break this year (unless you include the “seems like forever since we won a European trophy” one) but I’ve been rattling away on the abacus to come up with a breakdown of the first year back in the top flight. Thanks to statbunker.com for the information.

Let’s start this brief statistical analysis of the Premiership season with the final position after the end of the league:

Played 22; Won 10, Drawn 1, Lost 11; Tries for 41, Tries against 40;

Points for 443, Points against 434; Try BP 2, Losing BP 5; Points 49.

This gave us a positive points difference, positive try difference, and only just negative win-loss.

This is the second best finish for a promoted team, since the bonus point system was introduced on 2000-01. Of the eight seasons concerned (no promotion in 02-03), four teams finished in last place. Only Quins’ return in 05-06 gained more points – 51 – than this season.

Close, but no cigar

Five games saw Saints fall one try short of a bonus point: Wasps, Bath, Bristol and Leicester at FG and Worcester at Sixways. All except the draw against Bath game were wins.

Also two other games (Newcastle and Leicester away) were only a penalty or drop goal from a losing bonus point.

These seven extra bonus points (plus the other two for making the Bath game a win) would have pushed Saints into sixth place in the league, and would have meant fighting Sale in the last league game for fifth.

Last twenty minutes

It seemed to me (before I looked into it) that Saints had lost a lot of points in the last twenty minutes of matches. Only eight fixtures would have changed the points if the final whistle was on the hour mark:

Wasps home: won 24-20, on 60 mins drew 17-17

Leicester away: lost 29-19, on 60 mins drew 16-16

Bristol away: lost 14-13, on 60 mins won 7-10

Bath home: drawn 28-28, on 60 mins lost 20-21

Newcastle home: lost 13-19, on 60 mins lost 10-19 (no bonus point)

Sale home: won 38-3, on 60 mins won 26-3 (no bonus point)

Irish away: lost 32-27, on 60 mins won 16-24

Gloucester home: won 40-22, on 60 mins won 26-22 (no bonus point)

This would have left the table:

P22 W11 D2 L9 TB0 LB4 Pts 52

Only a three point gain overall from the actual results. Both our try bonuses were gained in the last few minutes, and only two more away wins added.

Speaking of away wins, while we only managed one in the league the best teams (Bath and Leicester) only got 5 of their 11 (with one draw apiece). Not much improvement needed. We were third in the “home league” table, Leicester losing one and Quins having an identical record but better points difference.

Attendance

We always feel Saints are a very well supported team, and an average home gate of 13,250 shows us at 97.4% capacity for the season. However this leaves us sixth in the home attendance charts. However three of those clubs who got 50,000+ for games at Twickenham (Irish, Quins, Saracens) so if you take those out their averages drop to below ours. The proposed expansion of the Sturtridge end, expanding capacity to around 17,000, should see us pushing Gloucester for second place in the near future.

Saints are in fourth place in terms of away attendance. Again, the three teams above us (Wasps, Quins, Leicester) had attendances at Twickenham to take into account. Even then, Wasps still had a better average than ourselves.

Nationalities

Gone are the days when Saints are the butt of jokes about a retirement home for New Zealanders. The current squad (excluding any new signings) will number a single Kiwi after Lordy and Carlos have left.

As for range of nationalities, Saints are low down the rankings in this as well. Every GP squad has English and New Zealand players, and in addition:

Newcastle 2 (SA, Sco)

Wasps 4 (Ire, Sam, Aus, Fra)

Gloucester 5 (Wal, Sco, Fra, Fij, Ita)

Saints 5 (Ire, SA, Sco, Arg, Ton)

Worcester 6 (Wal, Ire, SA, Aus, Ton, Fij)

Bath 7 (Wal, Ire, SA, Sam, Aus, Rom, Zimbabwe)

Irish 7 (Wal, Ire, SA, Sam, Arg, Aus, Ton)

Sale 7 (Wal, SA, Sam, Sco, Arg, Aus, Spa)

Bristol 8 (Wal, Ire, SA, Sam, Sco, Arg, Aus, Ton)

Quins 8 (Wal, Ire, SA, Sam, Arg, Aus, Ton, Fij)

Leicester 8 (Wal, Ire, SA, Sam, Aus, Fra, Fij, Ita)

Saracens 9 (Wal, SA, Sam, Sco, Arg, Aus, Fij, Ita, USA)

Player records

Interesting stat: none of our half backs scored a try in the league this season. Dickens, Everitt and Spencer didn’t cross the whitewash. Myler got back to back tries against Montpellier and Toulon in January in the ECC. Dickson got one against Bristol in the EDF and Toulon in the ECC. Foden got four of his eight tries in the league, but all of them from full back (tries against Bristol and Toulon in ECC were from 9).

I disagree with statbunker on that one – they have one half back try listed. However, they say Foden is the only one of the possibles to have scored. Foden moved to 9 in three of his scoring games, but only after adding to the scoreboard.

Myler finished 4^th in the points scoring table, and was the highest scorer not to get a try this season.

All time records

After a day or so looking round statbunker.com, I can also tell you that:

Ben Cohen is still the 4^th youngest try scorer in the league, having been overtaken since his 1997 score by Ollie Smith, Mathew Tait and David Doherty.

Paul Grayson is the 9^th best player for scoring points in consecutive games. 25 matches from Feb 2002 to March 2003 is still a long way short of Saints favourite Mark Mapletoft’s 48! Myler is languishing down the table with 14.

Barry Everitt is only 99 points from taking Grays’ 4^th place in the all time scorers list. Barry’s average of 13.5 per game is the second best behind Ludo Mercier.

If try bonuses stretched back to then, Saints would be hold the record for most consecutive games, from April to September 1999 they got six in a row. Strangely the team that holds the actual record is Bristol, with four in a row from March to May 2002.

The infamous run of nine defeats in 2004 is joint sixth in the all time rankings (level with Worcester and Quins). Rotherham take the dubious honours in this one, 30 in a row over two seasons.

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