Stats from the Rugby World Cup confirm the breakdown is the key area in the modern game and openside flanker the pivotal position. The Guardian's Paul Rees writes.
"Given that the Rugby Football Union finds itself, to put it mildly, at sixes and sevens, it is an appropriate time to be talking about sevens – and a few sixes – with the Millennium Stadium on Saturday the arena for a showdown between two of the leading breakaways in the world game, Sam Warburton and David Pocock.
"Seven seems to have become the new 10 in rugby union: it would probably not be right to call them golden boys seeing as how they all seem to end a match with various cuts and bruises on their faces, reflecting the ferocity of the battle at the breakdown, but it is becoming the pivotal position in a team.
"The game analysis of this year's World Cup, published this week by the International Rugby Board, shows how the game has changed, not just since the introduction of professionalism, but in the last four years. The breakdown has become the key battleground, not the set pieces.
"The IRB's analysis showed that since 1995, ball in play time has increased by 33%; the pass rate has almost doubled; kicking out of hand has declined by 45%; the number of scrums and lineouts has fallen by nearly 40% each; and the number of rucks and mauls has virtually doubled."
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