In a week featuring heated debate around South Africa’s best loose-forward options, ZELIM NEL presents the data.
Evan Roos has dazzled in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship and the rampant Stormers No 8 was therefore a surprising omission from the original group of players shortlisted for the Springbok alignment camps in Durban and Cape Town.
The snub sparked a debate over the merits of the loose-forward options available to the world champions as they prepare for a run of 17 Tests that begins with a visit from Wales in July, and ends on the eve of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.
Bok coach Jacques Nienaber addressed the debate with a story about Test caps and experience, while pundits attempted to fill in the blanks with speculation about the Boks’ playing style.
Mark Keohane shot holes in the arguments while I laid out Roos’ obvious merits last week.
Provincial bias plays a big part in shaping perceptions of a player and I’ve attempted to supplement the debate with data, courtesy of rugby stats suppliers Opta.
The scope includes 13 loose forwards, made up of eight from the URC and five from the English Premiership. The URC contingent includes Roos, the Vodacom Bulls trio of Elrigh Louw, Arno Botha and Marcell Coetzee, youngsters Phepsi Buthelezi and Vincent Tshituka, and 2019 World Cup-winners Siya Kolisi and veteran Duane Vermeulen, while Dan and Jean-Luc du Preez (Sale Sharks), Jasper Wiese (Leicester Tigers), Ruan Ackermann (Gloucester) and Juarno Augustus (Northampton Saints) have been on duty in the Prem.
In order to create a standard by which to compare the players, I divided each of the player’s playing minutes by 80 and used that factor to create a per-game value for each metric. For example, Roos has made 167 carries in 933 minutes of URC playing time which translates into 14 carries per ’80 minutes’, while Buthelezi has gained 681 carry metres in 919 minutes, or 59 metres ‘per game’.
Based on these collated per-game numbers, Wiese (15 carries) and Roos (14) are the leading ball-carriers by volume. Buthelezi (7.7), Augustus (7.7) and Roos (6.8) average the most metres per carry.
Augustus (0.6), Dan du Preez and Roos (both 0.4) are the biggest linebreak threats while Wiese (4), Augustus, Du Preez and Roos (3 each) have the highest volume of defenders beaten per game.
Coetzee leads the URC with a staggering 24 offloads and he and Dan du Preez average 1.8 and 1.3 respectively per game.
Kolisi and Buthelezi commit the lowest volume of turnovers lost per game (0.4), but this must be seen in the context of their low volume of carries – Louw (1.2) loses three times as many turnovers as Kolisi (0.4) but makes three times as many carries (12 vs 4). With an average of 13 carries per game for 0.5 turnovers lost, Ackermann leads with 24.8 carries per turnover lost.
Dan du Preez (2.7), Vermeulen (2.4), Tshituka (2.2) and Louw (2.1) are the credible lineout targets in the group.
Wiese (14) and Tshituka (13) top the list for tackle volume per game but Wiese leads all with a tackle completion of 92%, while Kolisi brings up the rear with 77%.
Poor tackle efficiency from Kolisi is mitigated by the best tackle dominance, however this is 13% of a low tackle volume (7 of 53 total tackles completed). Conversely, Wiese’s tackle dominance is 8% of a higher volume (12 of 148 tackles).
Vermeulen (1.0) and Roos (0.9) come away with the most steals at the breakdown, while Vermeulen (9 tackles per breakdown steal), the Bulls’ Arno Botha (10) and Roos (11) do so at the best rate.
Louw (1.5) and Wiese (1.3) average the most penalties conceded per match (attack + defence), followed by Dan du Preez and Roos (both 0.9).
Vermeulen (25.1), Kolisi (20.7) and Du Preez (20.5) hit the most rucks per game (attack + defence) while Wiese (14.9) and Louw (11.3) make the fewest contributions at the breakdown.
