Durban — It was the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli who said you get three kinds of lies: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Fair enough in politics but in sport, stats can be revealing, as is the case with those released yesterday by the organisers of the United Rugby Championship, who have revealed the top five performers in a number of categories and they could well be a pointer as to who will be influential for the Sharks, Bulls and Stormers in the weekend’s quarter-finals.
Interestingly, the Bulls have offloaded on more occasions than any other team in the URC while the Sharks have kicked the most, and that certainly gives an indication as to how these two teams will play in the early quarter at Loftus Versfeld.
Not surprisingly given how much the Bulls have handled the ball, two of their loose forwards feature in the top five “Most Carries” — Elrigh Louw and Marcell Coetzee. The player who made the most carries is Sione Kalamafoni (232) of the Scarlets while the Stormers’ No 8, Evan Roos is in second place (213).
In the “Most Offloads”, Bulls captain Coetzee underlines the controversy around him not being recalled to the Boks by finishing first — he offloaded in the tackle 34 times which makes him an incredibly useful player.
Incidentally two Stormers players — Warwick Gelant and Damian Willemse — are in the top five which confirms their team’s adventurous approach in the URC.
Speaking of attacking intent from backlines, it is revealing that two members of the Bulls’ back three, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Madosh Tambwe, are one and two respectively in both the “Most Metres Made” and “Most Clean Breaks” categories.
This emphasises what Sharks captain Thomas du Toit said earlier this week about the Bulls — under Jake White they are no longer a one-dimensional team that scores only from lineout mauls.
Tambwe has been lethal for the Bulls this season and it is a pity for SA rugby that he is heading overseas and these play-offs are his farewell to the Bulls. In the “Most Defenders Beaten” category, Tambwe beat 44 defenders for third place while Roos wins it with 49 to cement his case for Bok selection.
It really will be a joke if Roos is not selected to play against Wales next month because he also finished first in the category “Most Successful Carries” — he successfully carried the ball forward on 126 occasions.
In this category, Bulls No 8 Louw is fourth and Coetzee is fifth, with the latter also the competition’s third most prolific try-scorer (9). The leading try-scorer is Leolin Zas of the Stormers (11) followed by former Cheetahs fullback Rhyno Smith (10), who is now with Benetton. Another Stormers wing, Seabelo Senatla is tied with Coetzee on 9 tries.
It is interesting that in all of these categories involving carrying the ball and scoring tries, there is not a Shark in sight —it is mostly Bulls and Stormers players plus scattered foreigners — and that is because the Sharks are not carrying the ball as often as those sides, they are kicking it.
The Sharks enjoy the territory game via the boot of Curwin Bosch and Jaden Hendrikse but they might find their lineout under pressure on Saturday — the Bulls’ lanky Ruan Nortje has the second most lineout steals (9) after Richie Gray (11) of the Glasgow Warriors.
And on their own ball, the Bulls are almost impregnable, with their hooker Johan Grobbelaar way out in front as the most accurate thrower in the URC (159 successful lineouts from his delivery).
So on paper, it looks like the Bulls have most of the boxes ticked but since when is a game won on paper?
IOL Sport