Twenty-one matches fell below the Autumn Nations Collection banner and, as ordinary with the end-of-year Take a look at window, a few of the matches had been absolute crackers, whereas others had just about been forgotten about and consigned to rugby’s equal of Room 101 no sooner had the ultimate whistle been blown.
The brand new legislation trials launched by World Rugby earlier within the yr had been rolled out in November, with the identical purpose of quickening up the sport and lowering the quantity of ‘lifeless’ time in matches.
While official figures have but to be introduced, evidently rushing up the time it takes to kind a lineout or a scrum, amongst different measures, has had the specified impact.
Solely three of the 48 matches at Rugby World Cup 2023 topped 40 minutes of recreation time and the typical per match was simply 34 minutes 18 seconds, whereas within the Autumn Nations Collection just below 1 / 4 of video games (4 out of 21) fell into that class and the typical ball-in-play time went up by 8% (37 minutes, 11 seconds).
Elevated ball-in-play time doesn’t all the time make for a greater spectacle or equate to leisure, however the chances are high you’ll get extra to your cash than stodgy, stop-start affairs.
Referees are sometimes sticklers for following new legislation trials to the letter within the early levels of a contest/new Take a look at home windows, and, curiously, three of the 4 40 minutes-plus matches had been within the first eight matches. Solely one of many final 13 handed the ‘BIP’ barometer.
As a contest, Wales’ document 52-20 house defeat to Australia was as one-sided as they arrive and suffered as a spectacle because of this. Nonetheless, it was the match with the best BIP time over the Autumn Nations Collection, clocking 42 minutes and 19 seconds.
All 4 of the highest-ranking matches had been of an analogous ilk. The ball was in play for 41 minutes and 14 seconds in Argentina’s 50-18 win away to Italy and France’s 52-12 win at house to Japan, whereas Scotland’s 57-17 rout of Fiji at Murrayfield clocked 41 minutes, two seconds.
By way of leisure, the 2 finest video games had been arguably Australia’s dramatic 42-37 comeback win towards England and France’s 30-29 victory towards the All Blacks. The Ella-Mobbs Cup match ranked sixth for BIP (39 minutes, 44 secs), whereas the Paris epic was down in twelfth (37 minutes, 15 secs).
Just one match fell under half-hour for BIP time (29 minutes, 33 secs) – Scotland’s 27-13 win over Australia, which was something however a dud.
It was a painful November for long-suffering England followers, in the meantime, who paid by way of the nostril to observe three matches that featured within the backside 10 for BIP time.
Arguably the worst recreation from an leisure standpoint was the error-strewn contest between Eire and New Zealand. That ranked third-bottom for BIP time, at 31 minutes and 54 secs.
