A set piece in rugby is a restart of play that the laws lay out step by step: the scrum, the lineout and, in most coaches’ books, the kick-off and the 22-metre drop-out. They are the moments a team can rehearse to the inch, which is why “win your own ball” is the oldest instruction in the game. We collected every one of them across thousands of matches spanning every variety of rugby, men’s and women’s, from amateurs to professionals, to see how often teams manage it. The lineout is the set piece teams lose most: about one throw in four goes wrong.
Of the three, the lineout is the one teams lose most
A team putting the ball into its own scrum wins it about nine times in ten, as long as you set the resets aside. The side receiving a kick-off or drop-out keeps it about six times in seven. The lineout trails both at about three in four, and that holds for the analysed teams and their opponents alike.
The reason is that the lineout has more ways to fail. The throw has to be straight, the lift has to be on time and the catch has to stick, and the other side can contest every one of them. The scrum is a push between two packs that usually ends with the ball where it started. We looked at that contrast in more detail in the scrum vs the lineout.
A good lineout wins four throws in five, and it shows on the scoreboard
The typical team wins a little under four of its own throws in five. A quarter of teams win two in three or fewer, so a bad lineout day is common, not rare. Good is four in five or better, and a nine-in-ten day puts a team in the top quarter.
It matters for results. Teams that won nine in ten of their own throws or more won about two matches in three; teams that won fewer than six in ten won about two in five. Stealing counts too: the analysed teams took about as many of the opposition’s throws as they lost of their own, close to three of each a match, and every steal is a turnover with the other pack committed. If you throw short to make the ball safer, the five-man lineout is worth reading first.
The scrum is won nine times in ten, but one in six has to be set again
The scrum looks reliable until you count the resets. About one scrum in six has to be reset, roughly three a match, and once each of those counts as a scrum not completed, the scrum drops to about three in four, level with the lineout.
That churn is the point. The scrum is as much a way to win penalties, and with them three points or a kick to the corner, as a way to restart play. The edge shows up against the head: teams that won more of the opposition’s put-ins than they lost of their own won about two matches in three, against a little over two in five for teams that lost more. Winning your own put-in is expected. Taking theirs is what moves results.
What to do with this
Start with the lineout, because it is the set piece most teams lose most often and the easiest one to measure. Count your own throws won and lost every match. Under four in five, the throw, the lift and the calls come before anything else. Train lineout defence as well: a steal is worth about as much as a throw you keep.
For the scrum, count the resets as well as the result. Fewer resets means fewer chances to give away a penalty. For restarts, keep a note of every kick-off you receive and how many you lose. Most of them come straight after you have scored, so losing one hands the ball straight back to the side that has just conceded. If you want these numbers kept for you rather than on a clipboard, our guide to rugby stats apps covers the options.
How we worked this out
Based on every scrum, lineout and restart we collected across thousands of fully analysed matches spanning every variety of rugby, men’s and women’s, from amateurs to professionals, deduplicated so no fixture is counted twice, and limited to full-length matches. Lineout success is own throws won divided by throws won and lost, with resets left out. Scrum success is own put-ins won divided by those won and lost, given both with resets left out and with each reset counted as a scrum not completed. Restart success is kick-offs and 22-metre drop-outs received and kept, divided by those kept and lost. Each side’s set pieces are recorded separately, and the analysed teams and their opponents came out within a point of each other on all three, which is the check that the method is finding what it claims to. One honest caveat: analysed teams are often the stronger side, and strong sides win both their lineouts and their matches, so the win rates show association, not cause. Results are the analysed team’s, the side of the game our data captures most completely.
