Try tsunami sends a mixed message

Peter Jackson looks at an increase in points scored but suggests the figures may be hiding a problem for the Prem

- Peter Jackson

OVER the last seven rounds of the Premiership, Bristol Bears posted numbers which might have been cut and pasted from Virat Kohli’s scorebook at the cricket World Cup: 101, 73, 57, 99, 40, 61, 81.

The figures show the aggregate points totals generated by the Bears in those seven fixtures, starting with routs at Ashton Gate over opponents within sight of reaching the Premiership final; Bath, dispatched 57-44 in late January, Northampton similarly so, 52-21 in the next match two months later.

The Bears’ total points, for and against over those seven games, amount to 492, an average of 70 per match. They are not alone in purveying a game as close to a point-a-minute as makes no difference.

Harlequins have averaged the same total, in their case over a longer period. Their last nine results of the season produced totals of 81, 84, 64, 73, 68, 83, 52, 76, 59 points: 640, average 70 per match.

The stats can be interpreted as support for widely contrasting points of view: evidence that the Premiership has never been more entertaining or damning proof that the try is being bashed as never before during the 201 years since the Webb-Ellis boy began trending.

Nobody has traded them more extravagantly than Quins, 91 in their nine matches since resuming serious business post-Six Nations: 40 for, 51 against which works out at a try every eight minutes. A figure of a different kind, arguably Tinseltown’s most enduringly lustrous, would have given short shrift to those scoffing at ‘basketball’ rugby.

Mae West, Hollywood’s prototype sex symbol, famously professed her belief that she could never get enough of what she liked: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.’’