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Super Rugby stats deep dive: Which tacklers are carrying and passing the best and most?

25th April, 2018
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Stormers captain Siya Kolisi with his teammates. (Photo by Steve Haag/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
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25th April, 2018
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Lappies Labuschagne, Dillon Hunt, Pablo Matera and Michael Hooper looked good in my last piece, ‘Super Rugby stat deep dive: Who is tackling the most and the best?‘, regarding tacklers who want to tackle more and get up quickly to do so, dominating a lot of ball carriers, and seldom missing.

David Pocock has fewer minutes on his 2018 scorecard, but also looks like he is up for it.

As a reminder, we found the seven most prolific tacklers and added three notable opensiders who are in the SANZAAR test picture. We worked with two novel stats, like dominant tackles per 80 minutes (DT:80) and average time between tackle attempts (TBT), but we also looked the traditional stat of tackle success rate given that all studied are high-volume tacklers who are not only stuck next to rucks.

The tale of the tape was:

Success Rate (among ten SR loose forwards with high tackle volume)

  1. David Pocock: 98 per cent
  2. Dillon Hunt: 93 per cent
  3. Lappies Labuschagne: 92 per cent
  4. Matt Todd: 92 per cent
  5. Pablo Matera: 87 per cent
  6. Sam Cane: 87 per cent
  7. Luke Whitelock: 86 per cent
  8. Michael Hooper: 84 per cent
  9. Siya Kolisi: 82 per cent
  10. Kwagga Smith: 81 per cent
avid Pocock and Michael Hooper

(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

After seeing tearaway flankers Hooper, Kolisi, and Kwagga lag on tackle percentage and wondering whether it’s because they chase a few more losing causes than other forwards due to their superior speed and agility or it’s because they sprint farther up into the backfield and their misses may create hits for teammates behind the gain line, I overlaid DT:80 and found the following.

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Dominant tackles per 80 minutes

  1. Lappies Labuschagne: 3.83
  2. Michael Hooper: 2.90
  3. David Pocock: 2.75
  4. Luke Whitelock: 2.50
  5. Matt Todd: 2.16
  6. Siya Kolisi: 1.42
  7. Dillon Hunt: 1.40
  8. Pablo Matera: 1.33
  9. Sam Cane: 1.30
  10. Kwagga Smith: 0.68

Kwagga clearly has issues on defence which could prevent him from ever having a real test career, and TBT is a problem for Kolisi. Hunt’s and Labuschagne’s work rate as tacklers was phenomenal.

So I flagged Kolisi and Kwagga, which pointed to a potential weakness for the Springboks if only domestic players are selected. But in the comments Baylion made an excellent point about hyperactivity on offence affecting defence and wondered if Kolisi’s higher carry rate was hurting his tackling.

Actually when I stacked the ten ‘super tacklers’ in order of carries per 80 minutes (C:80) I found this:

  1. Pablo Matera: 12.08 (phenomenal given he has also made 110 tackles)
  2. David Pocock: 11.03 (I had noticed the Brumbies are giving him the pill more)
  3. Sam Cane: 9.77
  4. Luke Whitelock: 8.78 (by way of contrast Akira Ioane is carrying 12.5 per 80)
  5. Michael Hooper: 8.58
  6. Kwagga Smith: 8.10
  7. Siya Kolisi: 6.14
  8. Lappies Labuschagne: 5.66
  9. Matt Todd: 3.83
  10. Dillon Hunt: 4.15

We see how well-rounded Cane is compared to Todd and Hunt, but we also see that Kolisi’s workrate is down on both sides of the ball.

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Pooper looks better because Pocock is running and passing better, and to that point I looked at passing. Of the ten loosies, Hooper is the one who is by far the most likely to throw a pass, and Cane is also a linking player now.

Michael Hooper

(Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Passes per carry

  1. Michael Hooper: 84 per cent
  2. Sam Cane: 64 per cent
  3. Dillon Hunt: 58 per cent
  4. Lappies Labuschagne: 56 per cent
  5. Matt Todd: 53 per cent
  6. Luke Whitelock: 49 per cent
  7. David Pocock: 48 per cent
  8. Kwagga Smith: 47 per cent
  9. Pablo Matera: 45 per cent
  10. Siya Kolisi: 30 per cent

Hooper is passing a lot. So are the Kiwi opensiders. Kolisi is not.

But passing is also about accuracy. Who is throwing good passes most often? I understand a recipient can drop a good pass, but over time this sorts itself out and some guys just throw easier-to-catch passes. Matt Todd is the tidiest passer in the group. Again Kolisi is the worst.

Passing completion rate

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  1. Matt Todd: 81 per cent
  2. Michael Hooper: 78 per cent
  3. Luke Whitelock: 76 per cent
  4. Sam Cane: 75 per cent
  5. Pablo Matera: 73 per cent
  6. David Pocock: 72 per cent
  7. Kwagga Smith: 71 per cent
  8. Dillon Hunt: 60 per cent
  9. Lappies Labuschagne: 58 per cent
  10. Siya Kolisi: 56 per cent

We see that in addition to not carrying very much, Hunt is not a great passer. Kolisi does not pass much and is not connecting when he does – he has completed only three offloads, contrasting with Matera’s eight and Hooper’s and Cane’s eight offloads.

Hooper (and Pooper) is looking better and better unless set piece and ruck-cleaning are too compromised. We’ll look at those in my next article.

It’s very difficult to assess efficacy of carrying in a statistical sense. Gainline success is tricky, even though important, because Akira Ioane and Whitelock, for instance, have to eke out a yard or two a lot, and sometimes just not losing ground from the base of a scrum is brilliant.

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But if we take the total carries, and find out what percentage of carries end up in a tackle break, line break or offload, maybe we get a clue: TB-LB-O/carry (a terrible title). Perhaps ‘big carries’.

Here we are looking for excitement. Akira Ioane is not on our list, because he is not as interested in tackling as the All Blacks would like him to be, but he would have a fantastic big carry percentage.

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He has 26 tackle breaks, seven line breaks and five offloads on 100 carries, so I will give him a 35 per cent score!

In our group, with Matera, Hooper and Kwagga having the most big carries in total, it’s as follows.

  1. Kwagga Smith: 30 per cent (of his carries have a line break, tackle break, or offload)
  2. Michael Hooper: 27 per cent
  3. Dillon Hunt: 23 per cent
  4. Siya Kolisi: 23 per cent
  5. Lappies Labuschagne: 18 per cent
  6. Pablo Matera: 18 per cent
  7. Matt Todd: 14 per cent
  8. Luke Whitelock: 12 per cent
  9. David Pocock: 12 per cent
  10. Sam Cane: 11 per cent

This is probably highly correlative to speed. Cane and Pocock don’t have a lot of explosion any more after a decade of punishment, but Kwagga, Hooper and Kolisi are lethal when they get a bit of space.

A mixed bag, but clearly Matera, Cane and Hooper are workhorses, and some myths about passing are not based in reality.

The next chapter will be about the breakdown.

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