True. Tips the scales a bit more toward that option so.
Is everyone ignoring that he's the worst when he gets to a ruck? That's kind of important for locks in our system.
Those numbers seem to be presented as some 'mccarthy is obviously the guy' and he is really inefficient in important areas.
I'd also be very wary of throwing away Beirne's ability to generate turnovers.
If McCarthy does play, i'd load him up with carries though.
Ryan will start. McCarthy may bench.
One more thing, how can we get these stats routinely?
I would love to see these stats for a ton of other locks. Like Niall Murray would be interesting. I want to know who is good at random stuff. Or, how good is coombes when you isolate down to his lock minutes? Sheridan as well.
Coombes essentially blows everyone in the league away from a ruck perspective regardless of position. He seemrd to carry more in the last game possibly having jager to share the load. Edogbo would be the more interesting i think though his minutes are going to be limited even more than the already small sample size
Essentially of you start mccarthy you lose someone else as a carry threat. Probably doris
Is that something you have numbers for or is it eye test?
No you don't. You gain more effective carriers. If anything it lowers the chance of Doris getting targetted in attack.
Its something i had numbers for a few weeks back but im not willing to go find it sorry. They where overall as opposed to per game or per min so slightly skewed as coombes plays a lot of mins but as an example attacking rucks hit for him was 164 and second in the league was about 62. Essentially his entire job this season has been to hit every ruck in sight
You need someone to hit and defend rucks if you dont have that you dont retain ball. Ryan does a massive amount of that for us. Porter does also but i think it contributes to his scrum issues its just a huge workload for a prop thet also plays near 80 often
How tall is Coombes in actuality? Not his listed height.
Him as a full time lock would solve some medium term roster construction problems for Munster.
Not sure. I dont really trust listed heights either hes fine there for munster but id think hes short for ireland particularly if hes matched with likely a similar sized beirne
The answer is 6/2 bench
Whats the question
The numbers were provided a week ago or so via https://theanalyst.com/eu/2024/01/european-club-rugby-stats-hub/
but they only relate to URC stats.
They actually don’t support a position to say Coombes’ ruck work was that significant compared to McCarthy.
Coombes (in 710 minutes) had hit 47 defensive rucks, at 12.9% effectiveness, and 160 offensive rucks at 91.9% effective.
McCarthy (in 390 mins) had hit 40 defensive rucks (10% effective) and 66 offensive rucks at 83.3% effective.
So McCarthy had hit only 7 less defensive rucks in almost half the minutes at a broadly comparable level of effectiveness.
If you allowed for the minutes disparity McCarthy would be at 72 defensive rucks and 119 offensive rucks.
The bigger disparity between them was the other stats: McCarthy made more dominant tackles (10 to 8) in almost half the minutes, with a higher dominant tackle % as well. McCarthy also had a significantly higher percentage of dominant carries (48% versus 31%), alongside making the gain line more regularly and committing two or more tacklers more regularly too.
The fact it doesn’t include the European games is significant too. Joe McCarthy was excellent in all four of Leinster’s European games this season, and likely would have augmented the above numbers had the European games been in the sample set.
Those arent the numbers i was referencing but your assertion that over greater minutes mccarthy still hits less rucks less effectively kind of proves my points even before you consider a significant portion of his mins are vs regions so likely dont scale up evenly
And you must additionally consider mccarthys in talks to start for ireland whereas coombes will never do so. Not great
If you scale it up he hits marginally less rucks and marginally less effectively.
As I said, there is a far greater disparity in their tackling and carrying numbers (on both metrics McCarthy much more dominant), than in the rucking numbers.
Except its not marginal at all and scaling up rarely translates in any sport
And again ones a presumed starter while the others outside the squad.
Mccarthys a weakness at ruck time. Were not short of carriers he has the tools to.be excellent but at 22 hes not it
To be fair, I don't think the difference on offensive rucks is that marginal. 83% vs 92% is a sizeable enough difference.
How does this possibly make sense?!
How would you “lose” someone else as a carrier by adding in a guy who is one of the statistically most dominant carriers in Irish rugby this year?
How is Doris suffering (in your example) when you’ve a guy like McCarthy who is one of the highest numbers there at committing multiple tacklers?
Exactly this. Mccarthy if allowed to be a carrier/one up.hitter like sa use psdt would be fine now but you have to account for what he lacks elsewhere in the pack
Because someone needs to hit rucks and mccarthys not good at that.
If McCarthy is a weakness at ruck time using those Opta Numbers then what is Iain Henderson?
His numbers are 73% effectiveness on attacking rucks (10% lower than McCarthy) with only 10 more rucks hit, and while he’s more effective on defensive rucks (15% v 10%) it’s off a way smaller number of rucks hit (19 for Henderson v 40 for McCarthy).
So describing McCarthy as a “weakness” at ruck time is a bit of a stretch.
Also - since when are we “not short of carriers”?
Yeah, damn right he’s in line to start potentially.
The stats (plus just the plain old eye test) have shown a guy who has taken his game to another level this season - and who is a wrecking ball as a carrier and as a defensive hitter. That skill set is rare.
It’s far more logical to me that a 22 year old will improve his accuracy as he progresses but guys won’t just develop speed and power and strength. He’s absolutely earned the right to be firmly in the discussion to start this week.
Because attacking rucks are more important across the team.
Were not short since weve guys like porter, sheehan ,furlong, doris in the pack and aki at 12
You need to retain your ball thats priority 1. Slowing down or stealing opposition ball you can be more selective about
He is what coombes was 2 years ago. Flashy but not yet rounded flashy being the eye test i guess. If we start him it will be a mistake
Leinster haven’t struggled with ball retention this season and McCarthy has logged big minutes for them.
Yeah, this is where I check out.
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