ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the relative contribution of the penalties kicked in a match to the outcome of the match. Coaches select their teams on this assumption, and the major rugby-playing countries are continuously seeking methods by which the importance of the penalty can be minimized. Each match was examined, the number of penalties kicked was extracted, and the total number of penalties kicked in the Five-Nations Championship in each decade since 1947 and in the 8 years to 1994, was established. There are four possible effects that penalty kicks can have on the result of a game. Analysis of the 358 other International Board (IB) matches replicates almost exactly the analysis made of Five-Nations internationals, the corresponding figure being 72". Conclusion is recommended that further work could explore attitudes of referees to penalties, winning, losing and home teams, and examine whether the effect of penalties early in a game then effect the later scoring patterns.
