Conversion and Goal Kicking Success Calculator
Rugby Conversion and Goal Kicking Success Rate
A rugby kicker’s success rate, with conversions and penalty goals kept apart because they are not the same task — in rugby union and rugby league alike a conversion is taken in line with where the try was grounded, so a corner try is a corner kick with the same name as a tap from under the posts.
Goal kicking success rate
Made over attempted, split by kind18 conversions from 22 and 9 penalty goals from 13, under rugby union’s values
Formula
- a conversion
- World Rugby Law 8.7 gives a try-scoring team “the right to attempt a conversion, which may be a place-kick or drop-kick”, and Law 8.8(a) places it “in the field of play on a line through the place where the try was awarded, parallel to the touchlines”, within “60 seconds (playing time)” under 8.8(c). The National Rugby League’s stats glossary defines it as “An attempt at goal after a try has been scored”, resolving to successful or unsuccessful
- a penalty goal
- “A penalty goal can be scored only from a penalty” (Law 8.18); a team that indicates the intention to kick “must kick at goal” (Law 8.20) within 60 seconds of playing time (Law 8.21). Three points in union, two in league
- why the two are not pooled by default
- in 582 international matches from 2002 to 2011 the 6,769 attempts split 2,967 conversions to 3,802 penalties and 72% of all of them succeeded. A conversion’s position is dictated by the try; a penalty’s is chosen, within reason, by the team awarded it. This page computes all three figures and leads with the pooled one only because it is the one most often quoted
Worked example
18 conversions from 22 and 9 penalty goals from 13, under rugby union's values
22 + 13 = 35 kicks at goal; 18 + 9 = 27 made; 100 x 27 / 35 = 77.1%
Split out: 18 / 22 = 81.8% on conversions and 9 / 13 = 69.2% on penalty goals, an eleven-point gap inside one pooled 77.1% — which is why this page breaks them out
It is a rate, both ways. Double every count, 36 from 44 and 18 from 26, and the answer stays 77.1%. Halve the attempts and keep the makes: 10 from 20 plus 0 from 20 is 25%, against 10 from 20 and nothing else at 50% — halving the denominator doubles it exactly
Points from the boot: 18 x 2 + 9 x 3 = 63 in rugby union. The SAME 27 kicks under rugby league's values are 18 x 2 + 9 x 2 = 54, because league prices a penalty goal at two where union prices it at three — nine points from an identical afternoon
The refusals: zero attempts of either kind gives no figure rather than nought, and 19 conversions from 18 attempts is refused outright rather than printed as 105.6%
What a goal-kicking percentage is really measuring
| Figure | Where it was read | |
|---|---|---|
| International matches studied | 582 | Quarrie and Hopkins, 2002 to 2011, via the Science Learning Hub |
| Goal-kick attempts in them | 6,769 | the same |
| Of which conversions | 2,967 | the same |
| Of which penalties | 3,802 | the same |
| Succeeded | 72% | the same |
| Effect of distance | “an extremely large decrease in success with increasing distance” | the same, quoted |
| Effect of angle | “a small decrease with increasingly acute angle away from the mid-line of the goal posts” | the same, quoted |
| Where a conversion is taken from | “on a line through the place where the try was awarded, parallel to the touchlines” | World Rugby Law 8.8(a), quoted |
| Time allowed for it | “within 60 seconds (playing time) from the time the try was awarded” | World Rugby Law 8.8(c), quoted |
| Published success rate by distance band | none found | the study’s account gives the direction and relative size of the two effects and no table, so this page bands nothing |
The same kicks, the two codes’ values
| The kick | Rugby union | Rugby league | In this page’s default example |
|---|---|---|---|
| A conversion | 2 — Law 8.1(b) | 2 — Section 6, Law 1 | 18 made, so 36 points in either code |
| A penalty goal | 3 — Law 8.1(d) | 2 — Section 6, Law 1 | 9 made, so 27 points in union and 18 in league |
| A drop goal, not counted here | 3 — Law 8.1(e) | 1 — Section 6, Law 7, or 2 from outside the 40 under NRL rules | excluded: it is not a placed kick |
| 27 kicks from 35, totalled | 63 points | 54 points | a nine-point gap on identical kicking |
The same name for two different kicks
Rugby is two sports, and this page will not answer for both at once. Rugby union is governed by World Rugby and played fifteen a side under its Laws of the Game; rugby league by the International Rugby League, thirteen a side under its own International Laws. The two separated in 1895 and have published different numbers ever since — a try is five points in union and four in league, a penalty goal three and two, a drop goal three and one. So the code is an input here, and the other code’s figure is printed beside the answer. A number here belongs to a period as well as to a body: union’s try has been worth one point, two, three, four and five at different dates, and league’s long-range drop goal is one point under the international laws and two under the National Rugby League’s own competition rules. Every figure is printed with the body that publishes it and the clause it was read from.
“Conversion” and “penalty” each name several things on this site, and only one of each is rugby’s. A rugby conversion is the kick a team earns by scoring a try, taken under World Rugby Law 8.8(a) “on a line through the place where the try was awarded, parallel to the touchlines”, and worth two points in both codes. It is not association football’s shot conversion, goals over shots; not field hockey’s penalty-corner conversion, goals over corners; and neither of American football’s two, the two-point conversion and the third-down conversion, which is not a score at all. A rugby penalty goal is a kick at goal from a penalty, three points in union and two in league — not football’s penalty kick and not field hockey’s penalty corner or stroke.
A conversion is not a repeatable kick, and that is a law rather than a quirk. World Rugby Law 8.8(a) requires it to be taken “in the field of play on a line through the place where the try was awarded, parallel to the touchlines”. The kicker does not choose the spot; the player who scored the try chose it by grounding the ball where they did. A try walked in under the posts gives a kick from directly in front from a few metres out, which professionals make essentially always. A try forced down a metre in from the corner flag gives a kick from a metre in from the corner flag, at an angle at which professionals miss regularly. Same name, same two points, nothing else in common — and a conversion percentage adds them together without distinguishing them.
The research says distance, not angle, is what moves the number. Kenneth Quarrie and Will Hopkins examined 6,769 goal-kick attempts — 2,967 conversions and 3,802 penalties — across 582 international matches from 2002 to 2011, published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport in 2014. Seventy-two per cent succeeded. They report “an extremely large decrease in success with increasing distance” and only “a small decrease with increasingly acute angle away from the mid-line of the goal posts”, plus a ground effect they attribute to wind. So the intuition that a corner conversion is hard because of the angle is half right: it is hard mostly because it is long, since the line through the corner is also the line furthest from the posts.
This page bands nothing by distance, and the reason is a sourcing one. The obvious improvement would be to split the kicks into distance bands and report a percentage for each. The study’s own account gives the direction and relative size of the two effects and no table of success rates by band, and nothing else read for this page publishes one. A threshold invented here — forty metres, say — would be this site’s own convention dressed as a standard, and a band’s worth of fitted numbers would be wrong exactly at the extremes where a reader is trying to decide something. The split offered instead is the one the laws themselves make: a conversion whose position is dictated against a penalty goal whose position is chosen. If you band your own data, the thresholds are yours and should be printed beside the figures.
What the kicks were worth differs by code and is on the rugby scoring interpreter; what they are worth to a league table, where some competitions pay a bonus point for tries and so reward running rather than kicking, is on the bonus points and table points calculator; and the set pieces that create the attacking positions are on the set-piece retention calculator.
Every number on this page is arithmetic on a count, a law or a regulation that a governing body or a competition publishes, and each one names where it was read. Nothing here is a commercial prediction, and no page in this section is.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate a rugby goal-kicking percentage?
Kicks made divided by kicks attempted, times one hundred, counting conversions and penalty goals and not drop goals. This page computes the pooled figure and both splits, because the two kinds of kick have different distributions: in the default example the pooled 77.1% is 81.8% on conversions and 69.2% on penalties.
Why does where the try was scored matter to the conversion?
Because World Rugby Law 8.8(a) puts the kick “on a line through the place where the try was awarded, parallel to the touchlines”, so a corner try gives a corner conversion. Research on 6,769 international attempts found an extremely large fall in success with distance and only a small fall with angle, so a corner conversion is hard chiefly because it is long.
What is a good goal-kicking percentage?
This page will not give you a threshold, because nothing read for it publishes one. The only published anchor is that 72% of 6,769 international attempts between 2002 and 2011 succeeded, pooled across both kinds of kick, every distance and every ground. It is an average, not a benchmark.
Are drop goals counted in a kicking percentage?
No. A drop goal is kicked from the hand in open play under World Rugby Law 8.28 rather than placed, and nothing read for this page includes one. It is worth three points in union, one in rugby league, and two from outside the 40-metre line under National Rugby League competition rules.
Related calculators
References
- World Rugby. Laws of the Game — Law 8, Scoring, served clause by clause at passport.world.rugby (read 15 Oct 2026). Clause 8.1: a try 8.1(a) “Five points”; a conversion 8.1(b) “Two points”; a penalty try 8.1(c) “Seven points”; a penalty goal 8.1(d) “Three points”; a dropped goal 8.1(e) “Three points”. 8.3, on a penalty try: “No conversion is attempted”. 8.7: a try “gives that team the right to attempt a conversion, which may be a place-kick or drop-kick”. 8.8(a): the kick is taken “in the field of play on a line through the place where the try was awarded, parallel to the touchlines”; 8.8(b) allows a placer; 8.8(c) requires the kick “within 60 seconds (playing time) from the time the try was awarded”. 8.18: “A penalty goal can be scored only from a penalty”; 8.20 binds a declared intention to kick; 8.21 gives the same 60 seconds. 8.28 scores a dropped goal from a drop kick in open play and 8.29 bars one from a free kick. About 18,000 characters including navigation. The page prints no edition year — its image filenames contain “2501”, which is an inference and not a stated fact — so this site cites the clause and the date read.
- Science Learning Hub, University of Waikato. Are all goals equal?, 13 May 2014 (read 15 Oct 2026), reporting work by Dr Kenneth Quarrie and Professor Will Hopkins of AUT’s Sport Performance Research Institute published online on 4 March 2014 in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. Across 582 international matches from 2002 to 2011, 6,769 goal-kick attempts — 2,967 conversions and 3,802 penalties — of which 72% succeeded. “There was an extremely large decrease in success with increasing distance”, against “a small decrease with increasingly acute angle away from the mid-line of the goal posts”, plus a venue effect with Westpac Stadium in Wellington lowest in the study and wind the researchers’ explanation. The page gives no success rate by distance band or by position — the direction and relative size of the two effects, not a table.
- International Rugby League. International Laws of the Game, 2024 edition (cover: “2024 International Laws of the Game”, © 2024 International Rugby League), PDF at rugby-league.com (read 15 Oct 2026). Quoted only where the TEXT says it; the extraction runs to roughly 50,000 characters and is truncated partway through Section 17, and Section 1’s ground plan is an IMAGE, so no field dimension is quoted from this document anywhere on this site. Section 6, Law 1: “A try shall count four points” and “A conversion goal or penalty goal shall count two points.” Section 6, Law 7: “A drop goal is scored by a drop kick during play from any position in the field of play and counts one point.” No penalty-try provision appeared in the text returned, which is recorded as not established rather than as absent.
- National Rugby League. NRL Stats Glossary — official stats definitions, nrl.com/operations/the-game/official-stats-definitions (read 15 Oct 2026), in sections headed Points Scoring (Try Scoring, Conversion, Penalty Goal, Field Goal), Ball Runs, Attack, Passing, Defence, Kicking and Negative Play. Quoted: “Tackles made — Defensive player successfully completes tackle”; “Missed tackles — Defensive player does not bring player to ground or complete tackle”; “Ineffective tackles — Defensive player does not stop attacking player from offloading in tackle”; “Conversion — An attempt at goal after a try has been scored”, resolving to “Points- Conversion is successful” or “Missed – Conversion is unsuccessful”; “An error is when the ball is lost by the attacking team or when defensive players have reset tackle count to zero.” It defines no tackle efficiency, no tackle break, no completion rate and no percentage of any kind. About 6,500 characters including navigation.
- National Rugby League. NRL announces rule changes to make game more entertaining, nrl.com, Friday 11 December 2020 (read 15 Oct 2026). The Australian Rugby League Commission, on its innovation committee’s recommendations, confirmed for the 2021 Telstra Premiership that “a two-point field goal will be awarded for teams who kick a field goal from outside the 40-metre line”, field goals from inside the 40 remaining worth one point. The same item records that field goals “were reduced from two points to one in 1971”; that six-again replaces the penalty for 10-metre infringements while referees keep the power to penalise and sin bin; that a ball or carrier into touch restarts with a play-the-ball rather than a scrum; and that “A conversion attempt will not be permitted until the Bunker is satisfied a try has been scored”.