Champions Cup 2024

I liked the old format better. But this tournament has been very exciting. Some sides are flying and playing unbelievable rugby.

One of the Opta twitter pages had them up. I did find some stuff on Opta Analyst that I looked briefly at (I focused on Coombes out of interest because I'd seen posts about him not being in good form this season, even though Opta were putting up tweets as far back as round 3 and his name was featuring for various metrics).

Coombes stats would seem to back up about his form being good - his workrate for e.g. in Europe alone.

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Caveat Emptor: I'm no data analyst obviously so I'm sure my rudimentary way of just focusing on the top carriers or URC players and comparing them is probably the wrong way to go about it. Was most impressed by his ruck work, with and without the ball and he's featuring well in a variety of different metrics.

In defence:

Second most defensive rucks hit of URC players in Europe (21st overall with English/French players thrown in). Hurley-Langton is 1st URC (effectiveness 20%, Coombes 12.8%). Prendergast is 5th but effectiveness of 25%. McCann is 22.7%. Naomh Joe McCarthy has a 10% effectiveness rate, however, to be fair to him, he's hitting his amount of rucks with less minutes than the above (apart from McCann, almost identical time).

Coombes is first URC player for tackle attempts (19th overall). Hurley-Langton, Prendergast and Timoney also in URC Top 20. Coombes success rate of 90.9% is good compared to the other Top 20 (HL and Prendergast have higher %s) and he's 7th out of that Top 20 for dominant tackles (Prendergast slightly better %, others behind.

He's fifth URC player in terms of minutes played overall. I think he's covering a lot of the dirty work that Jean Kleyn does... was in second row in Europe this season or just at 8?

In attack:

He's top carrier of URC in Europe and 4th overall. Only 7 of his carries weren't into contact... he's 55 carries ahead in that regard of URC players! Very clear what his role is. Of that Top 20 he has the lowest dominant carry rate... but he's 8th for gainline success. He's consistently making some very hard yards is my reading of that?

In addition, of those Top 20 carriers he's 2nd for committing 2+ tacklers to his carries.

Can't find offloading stats for Europe here but he's well capable of an offload. At the very least he's freeing up space in the backline if we get quick ball, which if you look at Munster's linebreaks stats or the likes of Nankivell's stats alone... appears to be working, maybe? Also, he's Munster's second highest offloader for the season behind Frisch so maybe that solves that one?

Rucks: He's just outside the Top 20 overall (25th) for offensive rucks hit. 3rd highest of URC players. HL and Prendergast in lower top 20 but 44 and 46 rucks behind him.

Ruck effectiveness of 91.9%, which is 3rd of the top 20 (1% behind Rory Darge, his name crops up a lot actually and I never really paid much attention to him). HL is 81.9% effectiveness, Prendergast 92%.

No stats on tries but we know what he can do in the tight a few yards out. 38 tries in 86 caps for Munster. Anthony Foley, our former top try scorer (before Howlett, Earls, Zebo and Conway came along) was 39 tries in 201 games.

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But it's an interesting site. I found filtering for URC players interesting as I'm not too fussed what the Brits and the French are up to and then adding them into the mix after.

Hurley-Langton (who caught my eye in some of Connacht's games) and Prendergast feature not far behind Coombes in some metrics, ahead in others. Jack Crowley's ruckwork is very effective but he only hit 32 of them, still, good for a 10! Keenan hit 24 at 100%. Tadhg Beirne hit 78 and is at 94.9% which is impressive. McCann, who I really liked in the games I saw him in earlier this season, was virtually the same as Beirne which is impressive and his tackle success is superb, almost 99%. Prendergast's success rate is super too. Craig Casey is 3rd URC for tackle evasion which isn't surprising I guess, the little eel. Calvin Nash is Top 10 for dominant tackle % alongside Rob Russell.

Hodnett (9), McCarthy (10) and Prendergast (9) show up well for dominant tackles, Coombes has 8. They're all top 20 for that stat for URC players.

I don't know is there much between Prendergast and Coombes overall basically, depends on what the coach wants out of them, Coombes doing more work but maybe Prendergast more efficient in certain areas (defensive ruck effectiveness for e.g., Coombes better offensively?)? CP is top URC player for breakdown steals with 6, HL is 5th with 5 Coombes has 2. It's a pity Conan and Doris haven't featured as I'm guessing they haven't had enough minutes (min. 240 mins to counted) in all the above as I'd love to compare. Similarly, it's a pity Edogbo is injured as he's not too far away at first glance in some metrics when you go past the first page. I'd like to look at Joe McCarthy a bit more to see is the hype real.

It's all here - https://theanalyst.com/eu/2024/01/european-club-rugby-stats-hub/ is the site, someone with more skills and know-how could probably spend a bit of time doing a proper deep dive and present it better! (we can all twist a stat I'm sure!)

Should be a good atmosphere for that Leinster game - 8pm Saturday night kickoffs are always sociable. With this much notice it'll probably come close to a sell out too.

Its a favourable time for travelling fans giving them plenty of options to get home on sunday, but for atmosphere its gonna be poor, which will favour the visitors

My Flight gamble didnt pay off :( 90e to change to the later one on Sunday.

Cardiff next year.

Bilbao the year after

Indeed. Boring is the word. I wonder who actually wanted the final?

Lisbon or somewhere in Italy would have been fun.

Bilbao is fantastic. I'd recommend you go for a week, bring the kids if you have some. Lots to see and Bilbao is a wonderful city.