How to count minutes played in rugby

A player's minutes played is the time they were on the field. A starter is counted from kick-off until they are replaced or the match ends, and a replacement is counted from the moment they come on. In an 80-minute match, a starter taken off at 52:00 has played 52 minutes, and the replacement who comes on at 52:00 has played 28.

Starters

The fifteen players who start are on the field from the first whistle. Their minutes run from the start of the first period. If a starter plays the whole match, they have 80 minutes in a standard senior game of two 40-minute halves. If they are replaced, their minutes stop at the time of the substitution.

Count on the match clock, in minutes and seconds, so that a substitution at 52:00 is easy to read back later.

Replacements

A replacement's minutes start at the match-clock time they come on and run until they are taken off or the match ends. The two examples fit together:

• Starter taken off at 52:00 in an 80-minute match: 52 minutes.
• Replacement who comes on at 52:00 and stays on: 80 minus 52 = 28 minutes.

The two always add up to the length of the match for one shirt. A player who comes on and later goes off again simply has the sum of the time between each on and off. Someone who is named on the bench but never used has zero minutes, even though they were in the matchday squad.

RugbyMetrics works this out from two tags: substitution on and substitution off. Time ends at the substitution off, or at the end of the match if the player is still on. Minutes are shown to one decimal place.

Blood and HIA replacements

Temporary replacements for a bleeding player or for a head injury assessment are a special case. How these are counted varies by competition. Some competitions treat the player as having left the field for the time they are off, others record the substitution only if it becomes permanent. RugbyMetrics does not apply a competition rule for you: it records each substitution on and substitution off exactly as tagged. If your competition counts a temporary replacement differently, tag it the way your rules count it, and keep the same approach all season.

Why minutes matter

Counts are only meaningful next to the time they were produced in. Six tackles in thirty minutes is a very different contribution from six tackles in eighty. Minutes let you compare a starter with a replacement fairly, for example by looking at carries or tackles per eighty minutes, which is a simple scale-up: divide the count by the minutes played and multiply by 80.

Minutes also help with workload. Over a season they show who has played heavily and who has had little game time, which helps when you plan rest, rotation and selection. For players under 18 this is especially worth watching, because their total match exposure should be managed with care and with the guidance of your union or school.

If you are building the habit from scratch, our guide on tracking rugby player stats without an analyst shows how substitutions fit alongside the other actions.