Positives & Negatives For Scotland After New Zealand Masterclass

by Dugald Skene

The general consensus following the defeat to New Zealand yesterday is that Scotland can walk away with their heads held high.  Yes, they are the first team this year to score 3 tries against the All Blacks, and yes, they surpassed their total achieved the last time the teams met by 19 points. But to lose by 29 points at home reflects the often massive gulf in skill sets and ability to take chances.

Scotland came away from this years 6 Nations tournament with little other than a renewed reputation for keeping the ball in hand and offloading.  David Denton was the tournament's biggest carrier and Scotland offloaded more than any other team but all too often to no effect.

At Murrayfield yesterday afternoon, they managed one single offload.  That is partly down to a clear tactic employed by coach Andy Robinson to keep it tight against the a competitive forward pack led by Richie McCaw, but it also shows a little lack of endeavour, particularly when the team were 20 points down and had nothing really to lose.

Compare that single offload to the 14 that the All Blacks completed and you start to see why and where they found the holes.  All the New Zealanders were at it, when the second half saw front rowers mixing it in the back line with the speedsters.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Scot's game was the missed tackle.  According to Opta, Scotland made 71 tackles but missed 21.  That's almost a quarter (23%) of their tackles missed. Again, compare that to New Zealand who completed 114 but missed only 11 (9%) and you start to see the difference.

Scotland were aggressive, and their line speed in defence was good, and even proved fruitful as the blitz defence saw Matt Scott intercept Dan Carter's pass, leading to Tim Visser's first try.  But all too often, and increasingly so as the match went on, Scotland fell off the tackles.

Tim Visser dots down for his first try against the All Blacks

Watching the game back, it is clear to see a reluctance from the All Black back line to move laterally, every player makes an effort to straighten the run and commit the defender before offloading.  The simple initial step to change direction baffled the Scottish defence throughout.  The passing out to the left which led to Julian Savea's first try was the perfect example, never did the All Blacks backs drift and squeeze out their winger.

The tight defence set up by Scotland was also undone in the second half when Dan Carter bypassed all of his backs and the Scottish defence by kicking cross field with the most glorious of punts to find Savea again who glided past Stuart Hogg to complete his brace.  Scotland simply didn't see it coming.

I'm not trying to be hard on Scotland.  They started well, and competed gamely.  The introduction of David Denton following Ross Rennie's departure after he dislocated his shoulder would have telling effect.  Although coming on just as New Zealand entered their purple patch in the run up to half time, Denton squared up to Richie McCaw and more than held his own, ultimately getting one over on the All Black captain as he barrelled him over at the end of the first half as Scotland lay siege to the visitors' line.

Possession was split evenly, and Scotland ended up with 57% of the ball, hence the high All Black tackle count. And although Scotland have found a man in Tim Visser that has the ability to finish off more of the moves that Scotland so often develop, it still wasn't as ruthless or opportunistic a display as the All Blacks.

Dan Carter was sublime at times in the match, orchestrating his backs effortlessly, and setting up three of the 6 All Black tries, two from clean line breaks and one from the boot.  He also managed 9 from 10 kicks for good measure.  As the all time points leader in international rugby, it is easy to think of him as a metronomic kicker, but his display yesterday outlined that he is the complete player.  With a try scoring record of almost 1 in every 3 games (29 from 93 caps), it is easy to see that he has everything in his game - a very well deserved man of the match.

Dan Carter was in sublime form against Scotland

Scotland can indeed walk away from the game pleased with some elements of their display, and certainly with nothing to fear against South Africa next week, but they will have to realise that there is a lot of work to do in the tight 6 day turnaround.  I think the tackle bags will be out this week.

How Big Is The Optimum Sports Stadium?

by Dugald Skene

This week, the Japan Sport Council officially launched its design competition for a new national stadium.  The stadium is to form the backbone of Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games and would be due to be complete in 2018.

What is interesting to me is that the brief calls for a capacity of 80,000 seats.  In the most populated city on the planet, it seems that Tokyo could fill a stadium 3 times this size, so what are the factors at play that makes the ambition for this new stadium so modest?

Gone are the days it seems of the ‘mega’ stadium, the 200,000+ seat leviathans typically built in the Americas and Eastern Europe during the middle of the 20th century.  Indeed, it is rare to see any new stadium being built over the 90,000 seat barrier, with Wembley stadium in London and the 'Bird’s Nest' Olympic stadium in Beijing typifying the seemingly acceptable limits of size.

The Strahov Stadium in Prague could seat around 240,000 people

As with most things in the 21^st century, it seems a lot of this comes down to two things; safety and economics.

Many stadiums are limited by factors immediately around them, most notably transport infrastructure.  You can build a stadium as big as you like, but if you can’t get people there to fill it within an acceptable timeframe, there’s no point.  People arrive at stadiums over a much larger time period than when they leave. The exodus of 80,000 or 90,000 people from one place at one time often overwhelms the local area, it’s people and it’s transport system. 

There are also the inherent safety risks associated with large movements of people.  If badly organised or if panic ensues, it’s very easy to see crowds running over each other.  There is plenty of precedent highlighting the dangers of mass movement of humans.

So what of the economics?  This varies from stadium to stadium, depending on the sport and the team, the supply and the demand.  We have seen in the UK many top football clubs upgrade their stadia or move into new purpose built arenas, most notably Arsenal in London recently.  Local rivals Tottenham are also in the throes of building their new home (should their bid for the Olympic stadium fail).

London's Olympic Stadium seats around 80,000

The legitimacy of going through that process depends entirely on the amount of cash coming in week in, week out to these clubs.  For the English Premier League, there are 19 home games across the duration of the season, plus any cup fixtures.  Often, this isn’t enough, and clubs are increasingly looking to supplement their income by hosting music events.

In the NFL, the richest sports league in the world, stadium capacities are kept relatively low, around the 65,000 mark, because each franchise is only guaranteed 8 home fixtures each season.  These stadiums are seldom used for anything other than NFL fixtures, so typically for 357 days of the year, they sit redundant, essentially losing money.

It’s a similar story for national stadiums.  Used only a handful of times each year and rarely sold out, national sporting organisations need to find other ways to generate income.  Take Scotland’s home of rugby, Murrayfield.

At a capacity of 67,500, it is by far and away the largest stadium in Scotland by some 7,000 seats and yet is only guaranteed to host 5 Scotland games, in a sport that is generally considered to come a distant second in popularity to football.  The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) have long struggled to justify the size of its home.

Murrayfield; the home of Scottish Rugby

The ongoing drama regarding the London’s newest stadium’s life after the Olympics is just the latest of many.  With multiple parties expressing interest in the structure, most notably from football teams and even a bid to include an F1 track in and around the Olympic Park, it seems that any new stadium requires to have the flexibility to adapt.

The Populous designed Olympic stadium has that flexibility built in, with the ability to downsize significantly from its 80,000 seat capacity.  But don’t expect that to happen soon as the intention is to retain it in its current form at least until the World Athletic Championships have been hosted in 2017.

Sydney seem to have got the balance right with their Olympic Stadium, now called the ANZ Stadium, built for the 2000 Olympics.  Built with a temporary capacity of 110,000, it was soon reduced to a more manageable 82,500.  More crucially, it is constantly used and it has the ability to host a number of sports with varying pitch requirements including rugby union, rugby league, Aussie rules football and cricket.  It of course helps that the city is sports daft and although the stadium rarely sells out, the sheer number of fixtures it can host keeps it very much afloat.

The ANZ Stadium in Sydney

It begs the question in the UK as to whether we really require a separate stadium for each sport?  In Australia, each major city is very much isolated from the next, but have very centralised fan bases.  This means each city only really needs one principal stadium, whether it be the ANZ in Sydney, or the MCG in Melbourne.

In London, to supplement the multiple premier league stadiums which vary from 25,000 to 60,000 seats, there is also Twickenham, Wembley and now the Olympic Stadium, totalling around 250,000 seats between the 3!

This is admittedly a hangover from the past, but as Tokyo seeks to build a new national icon, thoughts for designers must surely be to provide a facility that can provide for every sport.  For the largest stadia in the world, the overwhelming emphasis is to be financially self-sustainable.  The best way to achieve that is to consolidate as many sports as possible, increase the usage and maximise revenue. 

Let’s wait and see what the competition throws up.

What is your favourite stadium, and why? Leave your thoughts below.