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...

Was England's epic win over Australia at Headingley the greatest of all time? Now the dust has settled a bit I thought I'd try and process how remarkable that test match was. First of all let me take you through how the match unfolded: Thursday : Joffra Archer takes six wickets as England bowl Australia out for 179. Morale in the Church household is sky high! Friday : England make 67 all out. I break the habit of a lifetime and stop following the Guardian's Over by Over coverage at work as its all too distressing. Morale in the Church household is rock bottom. Saturday : At my own game of cricket there is much discussion about how poor the England batting performance is, between us we recommend dropping all the batsmen. The game is still ongoing but no one is that bothered. The Ashes have gone Sunday : I pretend I'm not following the match but keep sneaking a glance at the score. Eventually with just under 30 to win I turn on TMS. Ben Stokes and Jack Leach perfor...

There's no place like home. Exeter Chiefs remarkable league home record This Sunday sees Exeter Chiefs play their 100th home premiership game (I'm including the playoff semi finals for sake of argument) at Sandy Park.  So lets have a look at how the "Fortress Sandy Park" stacks up. It all began back on September 4th 2010 as newly promoted Exeter beat Gloucester 22-10 in their first game in the Premiership (massive thanks to the previous sponsors of the league for letting me watch that for free), then a fortnight later Newcastle Falcons were seen off 22-17 and Chiefs were well on their way to establishing themselves in the top tier of English rugby. In all the first 99 games at Sandy Park have resulted in 72 home wins, 3 draws (bonus points for naming the opposition for each of them) and 24 away wins. Over Time In only one season have Chiefs finished with a losing record at home in the league with 7 defeats and just 4 wins in 2013/14, it should be noted that...