Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Stats in rugby are in the absolute dark ages compared to something like baseball.

I find them fun more than anything. Or a reminder to keep a closer eye on someone during a game.

Those basic physical stats if they are correlated to game success are probably the most important stats. But usually only teams would know them.

For example, in baseball exit velocity is obviously important for power, but they figured out that if you hit over a certain number once as a prospect that alone changes your power projection significantly. I hope i didn't butcher that, its been a while since i read it. i think it was 107mph.

There are probably stats like how quick you can jump and how high that are very important for the lineout. I doubt they have figured out how important each one is though and where the 'cutoffs' are.

The concept of empty stats as well is very well developed in american football and baseball, but less so in rugby.

I'd say two things about that. Team stats they keep themselves will be better. Secondly, they are probably useful but stats used 20 years ago in baseball were useful and revolutionary, but we know now that they were often wrong and/or superficial. Basically, we are at the beginning of the journey in rugby.

Specific stats like those where you understand how the data maps onto your gameplan are very valuable. When their video analysts clip their games they'll likely be categorising a pre-defined list of effective actions so they can drill down into the stats. Ireland and the provinces will have similar stats for their gameplans but we just don't get to hear about them.

Not with the other four fit. You can guarantee Ireland will have him training to cover lock and he's only a knock or two away from being the bench option.

Annoyingly - even the rudimentary stats Leinster used to provide are no longer provided with the same detail since the website refresh a month or so ago.

But I did look at Coombes' numbers this year - he is still a really high volume carrier (174 carries across the 13 games for Munster this season) but he's a low impact carrier in terms of actual metres per carry. His total metres carried this year is 342 metres, so the metres per carry stat is a fairly low 1.8.

I know there were games where he moved into the second row during the game, but just going off the games where he started in the back row his metres / carry average is 2.1, whereas for the three games where he was in the row this falls to 0.7.

His volume is a little lower when he starts in the second row as opposed to 8 (11 carries versus 14 on average), but he clearly gets the opportunity to carry in wider channels where he's more effective when in the backrow.

Not surprising that his most effective game of the season was the Toulon game when restored to 8, where he averaged 4.4 metres a carry off 10 carries. His numbers by comparison in the second row against Leinster (albeit an awful night weather-wise) were abysmal, and even worse against Exeter in Europe.

The comparison to McCarthy is more telling here - McCarthy is outshining Coombes as a carrier when playing exclusively in the second row.

Brilliant insight. Thank you!

I know that under Andy Friend at Connacht the "Bounce" stat was emphasised as a measure of player work rate and commitment. We were always playing bigger packs so the lads needed to rejoin the line faster to compensate. It was posted on the changing room noticeboard the Monday after every game. Now I understand where it came from.

Yeah, it was notable against Toulon where they were getting the ball to Coombes - there were plenty of carries in the centre channel etc of set pieces where his power is letting him skittle defenders and win gainline.

When he’s making the sort of carries a lock is usually asked to do - closer to the ruck, into a well set defence of multiple forwards lined up and typically not with a lot of momentum - he’s obviously a lot less effective.

What’s been consistently impressive from McCarthy is how good his footwork and power is on those tight carries. He’s breaking tackles frequently even when carrying in really messy situations. His disallowed try v Leicester (where he ran it in from 60m) was a really telling example of his athleticism and pace.