"And they've kicked the ball away again...for God's sake!"

Explaining the last few minutes of the Premiership final.

That was a pretty great Premiership final. Maybe not an all time classic but a real nip and tuck game which came right down to the wire when Emeka Ilione’s try set-up a tense last few minutes. Then Leicester kicked the ball away, and that was not well received on Twitter…

You won’t be surprised to hear that I don’t agree with these statements on any level. However, the decision to kick the ball is one that reasonable people have questioned as well. In this post we’ll look at why it happened and whether it was correct.

Kick Off

After the Ilione try, this was the kick-off from Finn Russell. He couldn’t have walked and placed the ball any better. It’s deep, it’s tight to sideline and Bath make a ball and all tackle on receiver Izaia Perese. Bath then go hard at the ball knowing that a penalty awarded to them will kill off the game and a penalty against them is probably a 20m loss of territory - no great worry. They don’t get possession but they slow everything down to a crawl and then go hard at the next Bath phase. As you can see, this is now a negative carry, another slow ruck, and Ben Youngs can only kick the ball away here and hope for a better outcome.

We’ll come on to this later, but, a lot of people would even criticise this kick. With three minutes left in the final you should hold onto the ball. But, the problem is that Russell’s kick has just significantly reduced your chances of winning this game. He’s put you in a position that it’s going to be almost impossible to run out from. So either you hope you win the lottery or you try and flip your chances at the expense of time.

The Lineout

The kick is a good one. Youngs gets it to Leicester 10m line and now they know that they need a turnover very quickly but if they get that turnover here then they kick to touch and give themselves a lineout and a shot at victory through a try or a penalty. And they do get their turnover.

Alfie Barbeary knocks it on and the Tigers dive on it. But in the mad scramble they created a second ruck, slower than the turnover and that allows Bath to get their entire team to their feet at the same time that Tigers have nine players tied in or around the ruck.

This is obviously not a good position to be in. It’s not a position where you’re going to get much, if anything if you go out wide. Remember, you need your six players to first keep hold of the ball, second move up the pitch, and third not just create another really easy ruck that Bath can attack without worrying too much about giving up a penalty.

Ilione makes a nice carry into a wall of Bath players. But as good as that is, it doesn’t solve the problem the Tigers have which is that their players are out on their feet and would need to generate a few dominant carries and quick rucks against a Bath defence who are set and can smell blood.

Youngs and Leicester need to change that. And they almost do it. Freddie Steward’s chase is pretty good. He holds his feet near the end and possibly if he’d have his time again he might have chosen to get a bit closer and try and take Will Muir into touch as soon as he hits the ground. Of course, this is incredibly easy to suggest from my laptop.

Even once Muir secures possession, the Tigers still have a chance to smash through the ruck and win the turnover. Bath have to work backwards to support Muir and the work of Josh Bayliss (20) is match-winning in this situation. He immediately gets his shoulder in there and stops the Tigers. From here, barring huge error, Bath have won the title.

Judgement

Was this the right decision? If you’re an armchair critic, then no. It wasn’t. It wasn’t because the outcome wasn’t what you hoped for. But we can do better than that. Let’s look at Oval Insight’s data to get a better answer.

• Just 2.4% of possessions which start where Barbeary turned the ball over result in a try.

• 9.8% of them end in either a try or a penalty won. That is less than 1 in 10.

• 3.8% of possessions which start where Muir caught the box kick end in a try and 15.8% end in either a penalty won or a try.

• Leicester retained 35% of their box kicks and 73% of them are contestable.

In short, your chances of getting the penalty you need to continue your attack increase by 71% if you move up the pitch to the place where Youngs’ box kick landed.

Remember that Leicester are already in a very difficult spot thanks to that wonderful Russell kick we started with. They probably won’t win this game even if the box kick comes off but they are in a better position for doing it. Either it does work out and they retain possession or they can immediately go after the ruck following the box kick.

Risk

Imagine you’re stuck in traffic and your SatNav says it’ll take 30 minutes to reach your destination. But, there’s an alternative route that goes through winding roads and will take 45 minutes. Maybe the 45 minute route will be more enjoyable, maybe you’ll see more things and you’ll probably feel like you’re doing something rather than just sitting in traffic. However, one thing is that you absolutely will not be quicker taking that route than just sitting in traffic.

Professional rugby is about doing things that make it more likely that you’ll win. Sometimes that means box kicking in minute 79 of a Premiership final. Nobody would blame the Tigers if they tried to run it out and lots of people would’ve liked it. That feels like you’re doing something to impact the game at least. The problem is, that thing you’re doing isn’t improving your chances of winning.

**Edited off the back of a comment**

The box kick had a 35% chance of being reclaimed which means that if you do the sum 35% x 15.8% = 5.5% (which is less than the chance of a pen won or try scored from their original position. This is true, however, from their original position they would almost certainly have had to stack two penalties on top of one another to get in range of a match winning penalty or drop goal. Plus, even a kick that Bath caught would likely have been contested and would have provided Leicester a chance to win the penalty on the very next phase. Which they almost did if not for a brilliant bit of Bath work at the ruck.