“I wanted to know how his players responded, how they found playing in empty stadiums. I wanted to know because the unknown can lead to uncertainty.”
Harlequins head coach Paul Gustard spoke during lockdown about how he’d been in touch with Chelsea boss Frank Lampard to discuss how playing behind closed doors had affected his team’s performance in the now completed Premier League.
Gustard’s Quins will be the first rugby team to experience playing at home without any fans when they take on Sale Sharks at the Twickenham Stoop this Friday; will Lampard’s words of wisdom have a positive effect?
“I’ve been speaking to Frank Lampard about how these players are going to go into an environment that they probably have not experienced since they were in school, where there are no crowds,” Gustard said.
“I wanted to know how his players responded, how they found playing in empty stadiums. I wanted to know because the unknown can lead to uncertainty.”
Without the so-called ‘16th-man/woman’ to roar their team on to greater deeds, or to pressurise the referee into giving a marginal call in their favour, it is perceived that no crowd equals no home advantage.
However, looking at the results from football’s Premier League before and after lockdown, this is evidently not the case.
Prior to the season coming to a grinding halt, 125 of the 288 Premier League matches played ended with wins for the home side – a success rate of just 43%. After the restart, this percentage actually jumped to 47%.
You could argue that, in football, playing in familiar home surroundings but without the pressure of delivering to a vociferous and sometimes hostile crowd, is of material benefit.
Either way, it’ll be fascinating to see how the odds compilers react when it comes to laying rugby matches, where the number of home wins is statistically greater than in football.
In the first 13 rounds of the Gallagher Premiership, 48 out of 78 matches (62%) were won by the team playing on home turf. This is skewed to some extent by the fact draws (there’s only been two this season) are much rarer in rugby than in football, but it’s still a significant difference.
So while rugby club owners such as Sale Sharks’ Simon Orange bay for the government to allow paying punters back in through the turnstiles, their heads of rugby may not be quite as keen purely from a results point or view.
The future of rugby clubs depends on a crowd, the result of rugby matches, it seems, does not.
