We’ve reached the knockouts which means that half of the teams have now sadly headed home; some with a feeling that they have done themselves proud and performed as well as they could, some with a feeling that maybe there was more left in the tank.

Stat of the Week

The Black Ferns have reached great heights this tournament. They’ve carried for 3,792m, more than anyone else and 68m more than the height of New Zealand’s highest mountain, Aoraki. That has resulted in 24 tries, but that is behind both France (26) and England (32) who rank behind New Zealand by carry metres. How is this possible? It’s time to talk about try origin!

Try origin tells us where the try ultimately started. The most common starting point is lineouts (39%) and turnovers (35%), while scrums are in third place with (17%). But that is just the average across all teams; we can look specifically at the quarter-finalists to see where they get their tries from. Ireland lead the way in lineouts with 69% of their tries coming there, 56% of South Africa’s tries come from turnovers, and France lead the way with 31% of their tries coming from scrums.

What does all this have to do with New Zealand’s carrying? On the weekend, England started their second try from a lineout just outside the Australian 22 which had been kicked there from a penalty at halfway. Their third try came from a lineout 5m out which had originated from a dominant scrum on the Australian 22m. Neither of those tries came from very far away from the Australian line and didn’t come from long-range carries. The first and third New Zealand tries, meanwhile, came from carries from halfway. Over the tournament, that means England have carried for 904m less than the Black Ferns despite scoring eight more tries.

Which is best? That’s an impossible question to answer, but maybe something that will be answered in the final if both teams up there. However, knowing this can help us to describe the playing style of each team. England look to build pressure through their set-piece and defence, which means they don’t need to take on high-risk carries. But, they need to win those set-pieces and apply pressure in defence. If they come up against a team who have the upper hand there then they can be starved of high-quality possession.

New Zealand have the opposite strengths and weaknesses. The fact they can carry and score from deep means their opponents are under constant pressure and can’t afford to kick loosely. But, the best teams in the world don’t kick loosely and use their defence to smother the opposition as soon as they have possession. There’s many different ways of playing rugby, the best teams pride themselves on stopping them all.

Sharp Shooter

As the knockouts loom, the chances that victory in a match will come down to goal-kicking increases. In that case, who is best placed to strike the game winning kick? For the eight quarter-finalists, the accuracy spread is stark going from top placed Australia (76%) to eighth placed Scotland (57%). Oddly, there has only been 10 penalty shots attempted all tournament with Brazil responsible for three of them.

England have been successful on 24 kicks at goal, the most in the tournament but they have also missed eight which is the third highest total. One area where this could be a big factor is in the quarter-final between France and Ireland. In the 2025 Six Nations, France won by just 12pts but their kick success rate here is just 61% (the second worst of the quarter-finalists) compared to 71% for Ireland. Will goal kicking prove the difference in any of the matches this weekend?

Homeward Bound

We might no longer see them in this tournament, but we can still celebrate the players who will no longer feature. These are the players from the knocked-out sides who rank highest in the following five stats:

Most Points: Freda Tafuna (USA) 30pts (6 x tries)

Most Carries: Francesca Sgorbini (ITA) and Rachel Johnson (USA) 49 carries

Most Line Breaks: Aura Muzzo (ITA) and Lisa Neumann (WAL) 6 line breaks

Most Tackles: Eshyllen Coimbra (BRA) 55 tackles (87.3% tackle success rate)

Most Turnovers Won: Claudia Pena (ESP) and Alex Callender (WAL) 4 turnovers won