So it turns out New Zealand played terrible, not that South Africa played really well

I analyzed the data from the NZ SA game to see what caused such a massive blowout.

For both teams, for each stat, I looked at;

1. Their Highest in a single game in the previous 4 years - Highest

2. Their Lowest in a single game in the previous 4 years - Lowest

3. Their Average across all games in the previous 4 years - Average

4. What it was for this game - NZ vs SA

In general NZ played below their usual average, and SA played about average.

Notable Stats

New Zealand

1. Lineout % was the worst I could find

2. Kick percent was super low (although only two attempts)

3. Clean Breaks were almost their lowest

4. Defenders beaten and offloads show some promise for attacking

South Africa

1. Gave away a lot of turnovers

2. Huge increase in running meters

3. Highest number of total tackles ever - this could be an issues against teams how have their attack firing

So it turns out New Zealand played terrible, not that South Africa played really well
by u/sweeney_khs in rugbyunion