The rarest scores in premiership rugby A few weeks ago I looked at some of the most common scores in premiership rugby, this time I'm looking at some of the rarest. The first place to start is by defining rarity so we'll look at those scores with the lowest frequencies. We'll also look at relative rarity. Rugby's rather peculiar scoring system means that some adjacent scores are much more likely than others. For example in 25 seasons premiership rugby teams scored 9 points 100 times but 8 points 194 times and 10 points 218 times. The rules At this point I should say that I've excluded those impossible scores 1, 2 and 4. I suppose those scores are rare, in the sense that you are unlikely to see them. But the comparison I'd use is that you wouldn't describe a Dodo as rare and like a Dodo these scores are extinct for now. I also excluded the Covid walkovers. Whilst there were scorelines given they didn't happen. I've used scorelines from the 25 seaso
I am well aware that the most common score in premiership rugby is a bit of a pointless metric. Yet it is interesting, to me at least and hopefully to you as well to take a brief look: As we saw previously the most common or mode score for all games is 20. This has happened 319 times in premiership rugby up to the end of the 2021/22 season. Overall 4.67% of all premiership scores finished as 20, ironically almost 1 in 20. Of those 319 scorelines 20 has been scored 176 times by away teams (it is the most common away score) and by 143 at home teams. It is the second most popular home score, as 24 has been recorded by 147 home teams. 20 has been scored 191 times by a losing team and 128 times as a winning team. Though 20 is the most common score it is neither the most common winning or losing score (24 and 13 respectively). Nor is 20-20 the most common scoreline in drawn games either. 27-27 is the most common draw in premiership history (11 times or 22 scores). Looking at the data season