After a busy weekend of Premiership Rugby I always enjoy perusing through the statistics that land in my Inbox courtsey of the very good people at Opta and this season I've decided to bring because the weekly statistics article. As the rounds tick by the review will become a mix of cumulative statistics alongside the individual round’s performances however clearly after round one those two things are one and the same.
First up let’s take a look at an individual that stood out statistically going forwards and it was Leicester’s full-back Telusa Veainu. While the Tigers did put too many silly errors on the park as I mentioned in the round reflections the positive signs are there and when they click it will be something to behold.
Regardless of Leicester’s collective errors George Ford - who beat twice as many defenders as any other player - linked well with Ben Youngs and behind them the aforementioned Veainu showed us a fair few glimpses of the feet and wheels that he’s famed more. Metres wise Tigers’ full-back notched up 133, of course some were chasing Semesa Rokoduguni to the line, and beyond that he beat six defenders and made 16 carries, the most of any back.
In terms of work rate and endeavour two back row duos turned heads with their tackle counts. Lewis Ludlow and Tom Savage made 47 tackles between them while Mike Coman and Blair Cowan put in an industrious 35 as a pairing. The form of the latter London Irish loose forwards surprised a few people but if you’d seen them perform in the Championship then you will know that these numbers are the norm and that actually they normally get through more work in a game.
GJ van Velze ruled the skies by taking eight lineouts and interesting the highest number of lineouts stolen by any player was just one. Joe Launchbury, Calum Green, Elliott Stooke, Matt Garvey, Jeremy Thrush and Maro Itoje all taking one steal each.
Tackles made
Lewis Ludlow - 26
Maro Itoje - 22
Tom Savage - 21
Taulupe Faletau - 20
Mike Coman - 18
Carries
Courtney Lawes - 21
Sione Kalamafoni - 21
Sam Simmonds - 19
Telusa Veainu, Josh Strauss, Jonny May, Josh Adams, Ahsee Tuala and Tom Wood - 16
Metres made
Telusa Veainu - 133
Dan Robson - 122
Will Addison - 121
Mike Haley - 118
Henry Purdy - 108
Defenders Beaten
George Ford - 12
Alex Tait, Charlie Walker, Joe Marchant, Telusa Veainu, Ahsee Tuala, Tom Collins, Schalk Brits and Nathan Hughes - 6
Turnovers Won
Ollie Thorley, David Paice, Francois Louw, Don Armand, Alex Lozowski and Will Welch - 2
