Opta Stats
By Touchline
September 12 2008
Opta provide stats on all GP matches and individual players. They are not freely available without a subscription but selected stats are displayed on the GP site. Like all statistics they can be interpreted in many ways and some of them are only as good as the people recording the matches. There has to be an element of subjectivity in stats such as tackles missed or defenders beaten.
With only one match played so far this season it's very early days to be looking at statistics. A much better picture of performance will build up as more data becomes available.
There are already some interesting stats however.
A key statistic is that Clegg was third in the number of kicks from hand with 17. From the account of the match it probably seemed a lot more to the people who were watching.
We have no-one in the list of players with high tackle counts but no less than four in the list of players who missed tackles.
The only clean breaks by Falcons were by members of the back row!
No one features in the list of ball carriers or offloads.
These stats do seem to reflect the match reports and the post match comments. Perhaps statistics don't lie after all?
The full list can be seen at
http://www.guinnesspremiership.com/202_10068.php