Looking at the 2012 and 2013 Rugby Championships

Ben Smith takes on James O'Conner (c) Getty Images

Now that the June Tests have come to a close with series victories for the SANZAR squads, it is time to turn our attention to the Rugby Championship which outside of a World Cup/British & Irish Lions year is the premier event on the calendar. Sure, it does not have the history of the 6 Nations, but the quality of rugby is the highest you will find and anyone doubting that can please watch the Round 6 clash between New Zealand and South Africa for proof (here. You are welcome). The rugby is just flat-out awesome and I am already excited about what a competent Australia would mean to the competition and the progress Argentina will make as they continue to search for their first victory. I will not be making any predictions in this article, but what I do believe is that this year's tournament will be even better than last year, which truly is saying something. 


WIth an eye looking back to the last two years, I decided to have some fun by look at all the back-three starters (using Argentina's entry as the sensible point of reviewing data) to see which players were making the most of their carries: who had the highest average metres each time they touched the ball. I used the statistics from the Rugby Championship  site since I assume this is the official record, but I did notice some incongruities with their data and that from Statsguru, so I guess there could be some disputing the numbers. As this is a comparative project though, I do not believe that any difference would alter the overall picture these excel sheets paint.