The sorry stats behind Agen's 0-26 Top 14 season

The sorry stats behind Agen's 0-26 Top 14 season

Agen will be playing their rugby in France's second division next season after a truly horrendous 2020/21 season.

The PRO D2 bound side made waves ahead of the season, snapping up the signings of Harlequins winger Gabriel Ibitoye and Leicester Tiger Noel Reid. Along with a host of other signings, their season never quite kicked off with Ibitoye even leaving the club mid-season.

After 26 games this term, Agen finished the season with just two league points, losing all 26 of their games. The side managed just two losing bonus points all season, claiming one against Brive in December last year and one a month beforehand against Lyon. 

Agen managed to score 315 points throughout the season, averaging 12 points per game. To put that into perspective, Castres flyhalf Benjamin Urdapilleta - who ended the season as the top scorer - scored six points more than Agen did in their entire campaign (321).



The side scored just 30 tries throughout the season with the second-lowest tally coming from Bayonne (48), who will face Biarritz in the promotion-relegation playoff. League leaders Toulouse scored 92 tries in their 26 games beating Agen's tally by a mammoth 62. Just two players scored more than twice for the side in scrumhalf Paul Abadie (4) and winger Loris Tolot (3).


Agen struggled on attack the entire season as they ranked the lowest in points scored, tries scores, penalty goals, conversions, carries, metres gained, clean breaks and defenders beaten. In fact, one of the only attacking stats where they did not rank lowest was in offloads completed, with Stade Francais scoring the lowest number of offloads (157). Agen completed 188 while Toulouse comfortably topped this stat with 306 bettering the next best by Lyon (243). They also conceded the most turnovers (391). 

A scrum success of 81.6% and a lineout success of 82.5% certainly did not help their attack. 

Their defence was simply horrendous. They conceded 1 101 points meaning that their average scoreline for the season was 42-12. They had the worst tackle percentage in the league, making just 81,3% of their attempted tackles, just two other teams finished the regular season with a tackle completion of under 85% (Pau and Clermont). This led to Agen leaking 5.6 tries per game, Bayonne conceded an average of 3.6 tries in their 26 games while no other side averaged more than three.

Agen escaped the drop, along with Stade Francais, during the 2019/20 season when the competition was abandoned but they had no luck in 2020/21 as they were comprehensively smashed, becoming the first team to lose every single game of the season. The only win Agen registered in all competitions this season was a cancelled match against Benetton in the Challenge Cup which saw the French outfit awarded five league points. Benetton then beat the French side 29-16 in the quarter-finals. 

The best thing about Agen's 2020/21 season is that it is now over.

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             

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