Are Scotland the new France?

The Stereotype

We're probably all familiar with the stereotype of the mercurial French team who can go from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again, often within the same passage of play. That Gallic inconsistency is as much a part of watching France in the six nations as Eddie Butler's 'Hallo Hallo' accent.

But are Scotland even more mercurial at the moment and thus arguably even more French?

How to measure inconsistency?

Measuring inconsistency is not that easy, if we want to show a eam is comparatively good (or bad) at something the stats will show them top (or bottom) when compared to their peers. In this case however we want to show them at both extremes as they go from world beaters to 15 blokes who met in the changing rooms before the game and back.

Comebacks and 'Uneven Scoring'

A really inconsistent team would be inconsistent within games, having one great half and one terrible half and you would expect many second half comebacks in the matches they play in.

Amazingly 4 times in their last 8 games France haven't scored in the second half.

This is all the more remarkable when you consider this excludes their second half collapse against Wales.

The graph below compares the number of points scored and conceded in each half during France's last 50 games (going back to November 2014). A match where both teams score consistently in both halves  would be in the centre of the graph. Anything at the extremes suggests an uneven points spread and some inconsistency.

The graph therefore suggests that in the past 4 1/2 years France have actually been quite consistent, and in 10 of those 50 games they have scored and conceded between 40% and 60% of  points in the first half.

How does this compare with Scotlands record in their last 50 games?

Scotland have only failed to score in both halves of 2 of their last 44 games

Their graph suggests a greater spread and a tendency to score points in the first half with most points to the right of the chart. Scotland have scored and conceded between 40% and 60% of  points in the first half of matches in just 2 of their past 50 games.

Changes from match to match

Finally lets look at how France's and Scotland's performances vary from game to game. Looking at the chart three things are immediately clear
a) How much better Scotland's results have been in recent times
b) That Scotland havent lost successive games for a long time (the start of the 2016 six nations) and equally havent won more than 3 in a row in their past 50 matches
c) France on the other hand have had several losing streaks (not least 8 defeats in their last nine). They have also had a single three game winning streak.



This does rather support the conclusion that Scotland are even more inconsistent than France at present but there's one more factor I think supports this hypothesis.

Second half scoring

This simply looks at whether gaps widen or tighten in the second half  and whether a team can 'win' both halves or not. For this analysis though we want to look at the number of matches where a team has only won one half and lost the other.

France have achieved this in 14 of their last 50 matches

Scotland have acheived this in 18 of their last 50 matches. 

In other words in almost half of Scotland's games they'll 'win' one half and 'lose' the other, and doesn't include the 6 games in those 50 where at least one half was drawn. 

Conclusion 

Maybe, just maybe, Scotland have developed into the thrillingly inconsistent side of the six nations in recent years, while France undoubtedly have had almost a decade of decline on the international stage with no Championship wins since 2010. However for Scotland to become the 'New France' (in rugby terms at least) they really do have to win a first championship since 1999 if they are to first escpape being the 'Old Scotland'.