running between two defenders. Diedrick & van Rooyen (2011) explored line breaks within international rugby union. They analysed 47 line breaks from 11 matches and found that 81% of line breaks maintained possession and that 51% of line breaks resulted in a try being scored. This implies that being able to create line breaks are desirable for attacking teams.

A key aspect of the study was to explore how international teams from the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere applied the use of an offload during a match. Southern hemisphere teams have had the most success in the most prestigious international tournament, the rugby union World Cup. Southern hemisphere teams have won six of the seven World Cups, with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa having won the tournament twice each. The remaining World Cup success was by a northern hemisphere team, England in 2003. The dominance of the southern hemisphere teams is also evident in the world rugby rankings (World Rugby, 2014) with New Zealand, South Africa and Australia regularly appearing in the top three or four ranks. Jones et al. (2004) explored offloading behaviour of southern and northern hemisphere international teams, however, this study only investigated successful offloads (when possession was maintained by the attacking team following an offload) and did not analyse offloads in relation to tries scored or areas of the pitch where the offload was attempted. The aim of this study was to explore the use of offloads by northern and southern hemisphere international teams within rugby union.

- 2. Method

Offloads were sampled from 26 International Rugby Union matches between the start of November 2012 and the end of November 2013. The matches that were analysed were sampled from four international series’: the 2012 Autumn International Series; the 2013 Autumn International Series; the 2013 Six Nations and the 2013 Rugby Championship. The northern hemisphere teams consisted of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The southern hemisphere teams consisted of Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. All of the matches analysed were taken from television coverage and a total of 491 offloads were analysed. The data were recorded onto a specifically designed Microsoft Office Excel spread sheet (Microsoft Corporation, Excel 2010, Redmond, WA). The area of the field that the offload occurred was recorded. The area D2 was recorded if the offload was performed by a team who were positioned between their own try line and the 22-metre line. The area D1 was recorded if the offload was conducted by a team between the 22-metre line and the half way line in their own defensive half. The area A1 was recorded if the offload was performed in the attacking half of the pitch between the half way line and the 22-metre line. The final area A2 was recorded if an offload occurred in the attacking half of the pitch between the 22-metre line and the opponents try line. The outcome of the offload was then recorded (for the operational definitions for the outcome of the offload see Table 1). A key area to identify for this study was the gain-line. For the purpose of this study the definition of the gain-line has been adapted so that instead of the gain-line existing through a ball winning contest, it was used as an invisible line across the pitch from side line to side line that goes through the player making the offload. This enabled the