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European Champions Cup Player Charts - Forwards

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 and 81 tackles in this year's tournament so far, which is a carry or tackle every 132 seconds.
Next in the top left of the chart we find the heavy duty tacklers, such as Lewis Ludlow, Colby Fainga, and Josh Van Der Flier. It is perhaps telling that we find 4 Sale Sharks back rows (Curry x2, Jono Ross, Jean-Luc du Preez) in this area.  In the bottom right we find the carriers such as Sam Simmonds, Bram Steyn, Carl Fearns and Jake Polledri.
Jumping back to Sale, by looking at the chart for all of a teams back rowers it is worth noting that Exeter and Leinster appear to have a balance of one tackler (Ewers and van der Flier) a carrier (Simmonds and Ruddock/Deegan) and someone in the middle (Vermuelen, Doris).


Second Row

Next up let's look at the Locks, the thing to notice is how few players are at the extremes suggesting that second row tend to have more of an all round role.
In the 'Super Human' area of the chart we find Freddie Clarke, Jonny Gray and James Ryan who would count as super all rounders.
In the top left Lloyd Ashley is on his own slightly, but has only just played enough minutes (161) to qualify.
Down in the bottom right of the graph Joe Tekori has made twice as many carries as he has tackles and Will Skelton, Iain Henderson and Api Ratuniyarawa also feature.



Front Row

The final group of forwards are the front row. Those with the most carries (i.e furthest to the right) are generally hookers (Cowan-Dickie, Chat, Baubigny, Marchand). The tackle rates of Franco Marais and Tom McCartney are all highest (again all Hookers) although Richard Barrington and Finaly Bealham lead the way for the props.
Its worth noting again the spread of Exeter Chiefs players with Harry Williams and Luke Cowan-Dickie have similar tackle rates but are at either extreme for carries and Alec Hepburn in the middle (with a notably high tackle rate), Leinster have a similar pattern with Tracy, Healy, Porter and Furlong though they vary by tackle rate get through a similar number of carries in 80 minutes of rugby.


Part two: the backs to follow.

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