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Ben James

Wayne Pivac's Wales coaching record compared to Warren Gatland

Wales' heavy defeat to New Zealand was another grim afternoon for Wayne Pivac, as his side fell to their seventh loss in nine matches throughout 2022.

Right now, Wales only have a solitary Six Nations victory over Scotland and a win over the Springboks in South Africa (history made but context required with a much-changed Boks' side) to show for 2022.

That might change with Argentina, Georgia and Australia still to come to Cardiff, but after a relatively positive 2021 that saw Wales win seven out of their 12 matches, we appear to be regressing back to the results of 2020.

READ MORE: The Wales team Wayne Pivac needs to pick against Argentina with four big changes

That year saw Wales win just three out of a possible 10. Wales are currently two from nine and there's no guarantee they improve that by the time they hit 12 matches played at the end of the month.

You'd have to go back to 2010 to find the last time Wales failed to win at least three Test matches in a calendar year.

Few, if any, expected Wales to actually beat the All Blacks, but the manner of defeat has raised questions over Pivac's record as Wales coach.

A tweet from rugby statistician Russ Petty shone further light on Pivac's results against top 10 opposition since taking over.

It showed that Pivac has won just six matches out of a possible 24 against top 10 opposition. There's further context provided with Petty noting that three of those six matches have seen the opposition lose a player to a red card.

As you expect, given how often you play top 10 opposition throughout the year, Pivac's overall record is not too much better beyond those high-ranking sides. His win percentage against the top 10 sides is 25% and when you factor the other nations in, it only comes up to 38.7% - with defeat to Italy this year hardly helping.

Contrast that to Warren Gatland and his coaching ticket in their final World Cup cycle between 2016 and 2019 and it doesn't make for great reading.

Gatland and occasional caretaker coaches Rob Howley and Robin McBryde managed to cobble together a 63.5 win percentage against all opposition and a 52.5% record against sides in the top 10.

When you delve into records against individual nations, things aren't looking great for Pivac. If you take out winning percentages of sides only faced once - like Australia and Fiji last autumn and Georgia and Canada before that - then Pivac only holds a winning record against Italy (three wins out of four) and Scotland (two wins from three).

So far, he's yet to register wins against Argentina (draw and a defeat), France (four defeats) and New Zealand (two defeats), while he holds 25% winning records against England, Ireland and South Africa - having defeated each of them once out of four attempts.

Let's compare that to Gatland's record, during a period it should be noted that began patchily before a rise to number one in the world and a Grand Slam.

Again, removing the sides only played once - which were the likes of Japan, Samoa and Fiji during this time - and Gatland holds positive records over all sides bar New Zealand (five defeats), England (two wins and five defeats), Ireland (two wins, one draw and three defeats) and Australia (two wins and two defeats).

As you'd expect, there were 100% records against the likes of Italy, Tonga and Georgia, but Argentina were also defeated on each of the three occasions they faced Wales. Better yet, Gatland's Wales held 80% records against France, Scotland and South Africa - winning four out of five against all three.

It should be noted that both France and South Africa often weren't at the levels either have approached in recent years, but it's still an impressive record.

Diving deeper into the numbers, if you look at the points scored and conceded against each side, you can work out the average points difference per match.

Still fresh in the memory, the -35 points difference Pivac has averaged across two meetings with the All Blacks is a tough pill to swallow - with Wales having not conceded a half century of points to New Zealand in the 18 years prior to last year's clash.

Other sides that Pivac's Wales have a negative points difference against include Ireland (-12.5 points per game), Argentina (-11), France (-6.75), South Africa (-5.75) and England (-0.5). The latter suggests Wales have run their neighbours close on occasion, but in truth it's the result of a record score in Cardiff in 2021 and some late scores at Twickenham in 2020 and 2022.

The Ireland points differential is perhaps the most concerning, given how easily Wales have been swatted away by Andy Farrell's physical outfit as the northern hemisphere's pecking order has changed so decisively.

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In terms of positive points differentials, the only side Wales have played more than once and averaged more points per match against is Italy (+25.5). Against Scotland, it's currently zero, with both sides having scored a total of 55 points across three matches.

Gatland's Wales fared a little better. There was still a sizable gap to New Zealand, averaging 22 points less than the All Blacks per game, while Australia (-6.25) and England (-4) also averaged more points per meeting than Wales.

Both the Wallabies and England benefitted from comfortable victories over Wales in 2016, but those three sides were the only to enjoy a positive points differential over Wales in that time period.

Despite losing three of their six meetings to Ireland, Wales still averaged 1.2 points more per game - likely a result of convincing victories in Cardiff in 2017 and 2019.

Other teams Gatland's Wales averaged more points than included France (+2.8), South Africa (+4.8), Scotland (+6.6), Argentina (+11.7) and Italy (+27.8).

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