Statisgasmic

My birthday is on September 22nd.  I am a Virgo.  By nature, Virgos are meant to be analytical (as well as organised, which as anyone who knows me knows - I am NOT)..  Every now and then, that little analytical streak in me comes out, and I have myself a statisgasm...  Similar to a nerdgasm, but more specific... more specialised.  Yes.  My brain 'gets off' to statistics.

As long as the statistics are interesting.
Sadly a lot aren't.

HOWEVER.  Rugby statistics.... they can cause multiple statisgasms.

(halfback) TJ Perenara scores a trie for the Hurricanes

For example... did you know that of the 559 tries scored (thus far) across all SuperXV teams, 360 were scored by backs, as opposed to only 199 scored by forwards - and that within the backs, 143 of their tries were scored by wings, with Center and Halfback scoring 84 and 74 respectively - with the fullback further back on 59.

'Snakey' scores at home, for the Hurricanes

As for WHEN tries are most often scored?  I can tell you they are most often scored at home, in the second half - most specifically between 41-60 minutes.  11 teams scored more tries at home, with 2 teams scoring the same amount of tries both at home and away.  NONE of the teams in the playoffs scored more tries away, than at home - so does this indicate that the teams playing at home for their quarter/semi/final have more of a likelihood of winning?  All teams in the playoffs have won a large majority of their home games.... (but then also a large majority of their away games also... so moot point?).

Tom Taylor on his way to 31 points
in one Super XV game (v Stormers)

When you get down to top points scorers, of the top 5, 3 are from New Zealand franchises - not surprisingly they are Cruden, Barrett and Tom Taylor.  Cruden and Barrett had a very similar number of penalties and conversions, however Tom Taylor had a substantially larger number of penalties.  Tom Taylor successfully kicked 15/17 conversions and 37/45 penalties - a strike rate of 84%
Aaron Cruden successfully kicked 35/44 conversions and 43/52 penalties - a strike rate of 81%
Beauden Barrett successfully kicked 35/51 conversions and 39/48 penalties - a strike rate of 75%.

I would love to be a rugby statistician!  Maybe if they offered rugby statistics at high school, I would have paid a tiny little bit of attention to maths.. because while I have never used Pythagorus' theorum (something to do with triangles?) since having to use it for pointless maths sessions at school, I quite often refer to my rugby statistics....  Come think of it - had they incorporated rugby into ALL of my subjects at school, I would quite possibly have been a little happier to stick around, rather than being in a hell of a rush to get out of there....  Now.  A PhD in rugby.. THAT would be pretty fucking awesome.........