This (2008 6 Nations Statistical Review and Match Analysis) came across my desk a little while back and is full of tables, statistics and interesting tidbits. For example:

This year’s RBS 6 Nations was the first tournament to be played since RWC2007. What was going to be of interest therefore was the performances of the teams following that competition.

Of the 6 participating teams, ENGLAND was the only team that came into the competition with a positive World Cup behind them. They had reached the final when the other 5 teams had faltered on the way. Despite this however, try scoring had proved difficult. In England’s 4 matches against Tier 1 countries (South Africa twice, Australia and France) they managed to score just one try. The interest therefore was to see if England’s RWC success had created a level of confidence that would enable it to convert possession into points more effectively than in the past.

This was not to be. England scored just 8 tries in 5 matches which continued their
declining try count over the years since 2001. The records show that England’s try count has gone down every single year since then - and the following table shows the extent of the year by year reduction:

England 6 Nations Try Count
2001 - 28
2002 - 23
2003 - 18
2004 - 17
2005 - 16
2006 - 12
2007 - 10
2008 - 8

This declining try count had happened in spite of England routinely obtaining more possession that any other team in the championship. This however changed in 2008. England obtained less possession than any other team in 6 Nations 2006 which explains why, quite exceptionally, England made fewer passes and created fewer rucks than any other team. Nevertheless, their defence remained strong - they conceded only 4 tries in the 5 matches which was less than half those conceded in 2007 – and despite the English forwards making proportionately more passes than ever before (and more than any other team), each one of England’s tries were scored by their backs, two thirds of which came from set piece possession.
Happy reading...