Blindsided Sports Stats

Following yesterday's post showing the charts for forwards in this years European Champions Cup here are some similar graphs for the Backs. Player Work Rate I've tried to simplify this as much as possible (and make it comparable across the piece) so these charts are simply looking at tackles per 80 minutes and carries per 80 minutes. I know this is a massive over simplification but it should act as a bit of a measure for the number of collisions sustained by a player. Things like interactions at the breakdown aren't counted (because I don't have access to those stats) which is a limitation but still there is some value in these graphics: Back 3 Its not much of a surprise that the wingers and fullbacks dont get their hands on the ball that often. Will Addison is a notable exception to this averaging almost 18 carries per game;  Taqele Naiyaravoro, Simon Zebo and Nick Abendanon are the other busy carriers. Elsewhere the prodigious Louis Rees-Zammit is makin

Following me spending a bit of time practising some R code looking at some of the Champions cup player data I thought I'd share some of the charts (or at least record them here for 'posterity').  Player Work Rate I've tried to simplify this as much as possible (and make it comparable across the piece) so these charts are simply looking at tackles per 80 minutes and carries per 80 minutes. I know this is a massive over simplification but it should act as a bit of a measure for the number of collisions sustained by a player. I've split the charts by playing position so for no particular reason let's start with the back row Back Row First up the Back Row. The further up to the right the greater the amount of attrition faced by a player, and the size of the dot is their average metres per carry. As with a lot of charts the most interesting bits are found at the various extremes: Firstly CJ Stander's work rate is phenomenal with him making 96 carries