Lions 2017 [MOD WARNING IN OP]

bilston

leakyboots wrote: »

Not sure if posted elsewhere, some Lions tour statistics:

"Gatland’s men won just 50% of their games, but what matters is how they played and that fact that they won the games that really mattered, including the 2nd Test in Wellington. Here’s a look back at how the players performed on tour".

MOST TRIES
Tommy Seymour 3
Jack Nowell 2
Penalty try 2
Eleven players 1

MOST POINTS
Owen Farrell 45
Dan Biggar 35
Leigh Halfpenny 31

MOST MINUTES PLAYED
Taulupe Faletau 480
Anthony Watson 447
Elliot Daly 419
Liam Williams 414
CJ Stander 386

FEWEST MINUTES PLAYED
Ross Moriarty 80
Stuart Hogg 99
Ken Owens 160
Rhys Webb 170
Jared Payne 185

TURNOVERS WON
Rory Best 6
CJ Stander 6
Mako Vunipola 6
Iain Henderson 5
James Haskell 3

TURNOVERS CONCEDED
Liam Williams 17
Jonathan Sexton 10
Elliot Daly 9
Alun Wyn Jones 9
Jack Nowell 7

MOST CARRIES
CJ Stander 84
Taulupe Faletau 56
Liam Williams 49
Ben Te’o 48
Maro Itoje 45

MOST METRES MADE
Liam Williams 344
Anthony Watson 255
Ben Te’o 226
Jonathan Davies 220
Tommy Seymour 215

CLEAN BREAKS
Ben Te’o 9
Jonathan Davies 7
Liam Williams 7
Anthony Watson 7
Elliot Daly 6

DEFENDERS BEATEN
Anthony Watson 18
Ben Te’o 14
Taulupe Faletau 14
Liam Williams 12
Elliot Daly 11

MOST OFFLOADS
Ben Te’o 9
Alun Wyn Jones 5
Justin Tipuric 5
Liam Williams 5
Jonathan Davies 4

MOST KICKS OUT OF HAND
Conor Murray 58
Dan Biggar 35
Rhys Webb 28
Greig Laidlaw 25
Owen Farrell 24

MOST PASSES
Greig Laidlaw 314
Conor Murray 298
Rhys Webb 136
Jonathan Sexton 106
Dan Biggar 89

MOST TACKLES
Taulupe Faletau 76
Justin Tipuric 58
CJ Stander 56
Mako Vunipola 56
Jamie George 54

MOST MISSED TACKLES
Owen Farrell 11
Conor Murray 9
Greig Laidlaw 8
Jonathan Sexton 8
Maro Itoje 7

The turnovers won stat is interesting and perhaps illustrates a difference between how the Lions played and how Ireland play. 3 of the top 5 turnovers won were from Irish players and only CJ Stander got any game time (40 mins) in the tests.

Buer

A list like that based on the entire tour is very hard to really take much from given the fact that there's a massive disparity between the standard of opposition. Mid week players performed excellently against a vastly weakened Chiefs team before the test players went toe to toe with NZ. Not really like with like.

The most impressive statistics, for me, are the guys who are topping charts despite playing the bulk of their minutes against NZ.

Vunipola with 6 turnovers, Davies with 7 clean breaks, Watson with 18 defenders beaten, Faletau with 76 tackles and 14 defenders beaten

sydthebeat

Te'o did well for a lad who cant off load .....

Christy42

sydthebeat wrote: »

Te'o did well for a lad who cant off load .....

I am pretty sure he just lost the ball in the tackle repeatedly and some of the time it went to a team mate:p

molloyjh

sydthebeat wrote: »

Te'o did well for a lad who cant off load .....

I think the complaints were that he can't pass. Offloading was never a problem for him, but his general distribution is different.

stephen_n

Sexton doesn't even rank in kicking from hand, that's strange for a 10.

Ardillaun

I'd like to see a list that would show the stats for each player per hour of play.
As for Farrell missing tackles, that's no surprise to anyone who watched the games. I would have thought it was an even bigger number.

How many of Laidlaw's passes could accurately be called passes?

Buer

I think Joe Marler has cemented his place in the idiot category after the interview he gave this weekend regarding his Lions experience.

Players returning from a Lions tour tend to extol the quality of their teammates and opposition, an experience which they invariably say has made them a better player. As his wont, Marler does not engage with such platitudes. Did it make him a better player he is asked? “I wouldn’t say that,” he replies. What did he learn instead? “How to drink,” is the short, direct answer.

“Rory Best is the one to blame for that,” Marler continues. “He is the one to blame for every time I spoke to my wife on Facetime she said ‘are you pissed again?’ And I was ‘of course not’ so that is probably the biggest thing I learned on that tour.

“It was a different tour particularly for the midweek ‘veg’ as we were labelled but it was really enjoyable. It was more like an old school sort of tour basically. I didn’t expect it – I thought those days are kind of gone now. Everything is ultra professional isn’t it?

“That didn’t detract from us working our bollocks off as much as we could because we wanted to be part of a successful Lions tour,” Marler said. “We wanted the boys to go out there and win 3-0. We trained very hard and we pushed boys in our positions as hard as we could to make sure they were ready for the Tests.”

I can't imagine Rory Best would be too thrilled with those comments. The midweek team were on the p*ss whilst there and 3 of the 4 midweek games were lost...Gatland has a long memory. If he's coach in 2021, I would expect these comments have done Marler no favours at all. The guy is a moron.

Buer

Buer wrote: »

I think Joe Marler has cemented his place in the idiot category after the interview he gave this weekend regarding his Lions experience.



I can't imagine Rory Best would be too thrilled with those comments. The midweek team were on the p*ss whilst there and 3 of the 4 midweek games were lost...Gatland has a long memory. If he's coach in 2021, I would expect these comments have done Marler no favours at all. The guy is a moron.

No word yet on a DVD or whatever format Lions Tour documentary. Enjoyed the last one.

Erik Shin

Buer wrote: »

I think Joe Marler has cemented his place in the idiot category after the interview he gave this weekend regarding his Lions experience.



I can't imagine Rory Best would be too thrilled with those comments. The midweek team were on the p*ss whilst there and 3 of the 4 midweek games were lost...Gatland has a long memory. If he's coach in 2021, I would expect these comments have done Marler no favours at all. The guy is a moron.

He told the truth as he saw it....I have no issues with that...

Buer

Erik Shin wrote:

He told the truth as he saw it....I have no issues with that...

As The Dude says, he's not wrong, he's just an a*shole.

Drops Best in it and I would imagine he's embellishing the drinking too to play up to his persona.

Buer

Erik Shin wrote:

He told the truth as he saw it....I have no issues with that...

As The Dude says, he's not wrong, he's just an a*shole.

Drops Best in it and I would imagine he's embellishing the drinking too to play up to his persona.

Erik Shin

Buer wrote: »

As The Dude says, he's not wrong, he's just an a*shole.

Drops Best in it and I would imagine he's embellishing the drinking too to play up to his persona.

Think it's more of an insight into the wonderful management techniques of gatland tbh...he's getting his digs in...and it's not against Best who's never touring with the lions again

Erik Shin

Board gone to shïte again...no word from on high?

jr86

Buer wrote: »

As The Dude says, he's not wrong, he's just an a*shole.

Drops Best in it and I would imagine he's embellishing the drinking too to play up to his persona.

Marler is a very colourful character though, he's a serious messer. He completely takes the piss in interviews and media work. Look him up on YouTube

He's no real drinker at all he's only exaggerating for effect. It's hard to tell over a written interview but seeing his interviews first hand it's clear he stirs sh1t in them for the hell of it

Lads on tour in getting pissed shocker.

Worst part of that interview is the confirmation that he (and by extension plenty of others) effectively had no chance at playing a test.

errlloyd

I could be way off the ball here, but I think what we are getting there is that slight regret at bitterness at being in the midweek team.

I really can't imagine how bad it is for a player to get so close to the test team and not make it. It must be hard, and honestly when you get back you probably don't want to do interviews on it at all. You probably want it to just have been a bit of fun.

Former Former

Billy Beautiful Guillotine wrote: »

Lads on tour in getting pissed shocker.

Worst part of that interview is the confirmation that he (and by extension plenty of others) effectively had no chance at playing a test.

TBH, I think Marler was one of the very few who were out of the running from day one.

Running through the squad, I'd say maybe Marler, Moriarty and Laidlaw (obvs) were the only guys who never had a real prospect of getting a test run. Biggar too, but when you're back up to Jonny Sexton, you're always in with a shot of gametime (and apparently Biggar was an exemplary squad member).

Edit: maybe Tommy Seymour too.

Buer

A glut of players went out there as very likely midweek players. It would have taken an injury, some superb performances or a dramatic loss of form from those ahead of them for them to be in the mix. Marler had two excellent options ahead of him and both had excellent tours. He actually started the tour really well himself but I think his performances dropped and he hit a low point with a completely daft yellow card against the Chiefs.

I reckon anything from 10 to 15 players were thought of as outsiders for the test side by the coaching staff when they left. Seymour, Nowell, Daly, Laidlaw, Moriarty, POM, Henderson, Lawes, Best, Marler, Cole, Haskell, Tipuric, Biggar, Joseph.

I'd consider all of the above as travelling with a disadvantage and the assumption that they wouldn't make the test side. The only ones who did make a test start were POM who was in due to good showings combined with lack of fitness for Warburton before being dropped and Daly who was in due to a complete non-performance from other wing options and providing a long range kicking option.

11 of those lads never made a test 23 and I don't think that's a particular surprise. The performances of Henderson seemed to underline to me just how set in stone some of the opinions on selection were.

PTH2009

looks good and will be on my xmas list for sure. will there be a Blu Ray release and a ultimate collection (includes a highlights disc) ???

PTH2009

PTH2009 wrote: »

looks good and will be on my xmas list for sure. will there be a Blu Ray release and a ultimate collection (includes a highlights disc) ???

Looking forward to this. The last one was great entertainment for a few hours.

Sephiral

Seanie sticking the knife in!

http://www.the42.ie/sean-obrien-2017-lions-warren-gatland-rob-howley-3607917-Sep2017/

buck65

Sure everyone knew Howley was a waste of time. Seanie is a bit of a flute

nagdefy

Seanie.. I was listening to his interview on the Late Late Show 2 weeks ago and i wasn't too impressed. He came across as immature for a fella of 30 in my opinion. Just trying too hard or something.

I saw no real captaincy material there. When i compared interviews Richie McCaw made and how grounded he was.

There's a lot made about his humour and banter etc but singing some oul stupid song about Nelly the cow at James Haskell wouldn't rate too highly on the craic stakes for me.

Tubridy hasn't a clue about sports but all O'Brien's jibes at him made the later look like a bit of a boll*x to me.

Ardillaun

I've only read the stuff O'Brien said about Howley in the Indo - a bit off to come out with this now even if it were true which all evidence since suggests otherwise. IMHO the Lions were very well managed to eke out a draw.

Sephiral

Tbh, I think O Brien's criticisms were all on the ball, but getting a draw when everyone expected a whitewash is still a great achievement.

Ardillaun

Ardillaun wrote: »

I've only read the stuff O'Brien said about Howley in the Indo - a bit off to come out with this now even if it were true which all evidence since suggests otherwise. IMHO the Lions were very well managed to eke out a draw.

Yeah I agree, the coaches certainly get a fair amount of credit for the tour result, nobody gave them a chance.

On SOB, I guess it's a bit of frustration, he won't go on another tour and might not get that chance to beat them down there again.

D14Rugby

I don't see how people can have problems with what O'brien has said. He's basically exposed all the mistakes the coaches made and pointed out the players weren't as happy with a draw as had been made out by the lions organisation and if he hadn't done that those coaches would have been in a strong position to coach the next tour but now that their mistakes have been put out for all to see it will be a huge black mark when it comes to picking the staff for the next tour.

buck65

No problem with O Brien coming out but really 3-0 win for the Lions ? come on. I think with every Lions tour due to the size and short set-up time there will be plenty of issues but Gatland seemed to get it right this time round for the most part.