Rugby Union in the pre Internet years

Sometimes an innocuous tweet can reveal something.

 

As it turned out that was wrong, and ruffled the feathers of New Zealand’s finest investigative journalist while strangely missing the point, and, in turn, a Like from NZR,s most loyal cheerleader

A thing New Zealand rugby has done well over the last couple of decades is commemorating its great, and the milestones they have achieved.

Those silver caps handed out at Eden Park with SKY well on board with slow motion ambient music to boot.

This weekend Beauden Barrett will play his 100^th test and get that after match gig when the silver cap is placed upon the head.  All good stuff, but there is an interesting stat that rubs it in for people from that amateur era,

100 caps, as it happens with 36 off the bench.

These figures are from the AllBlacks.co.nz site and are a really roundabout way of providing useful information.

In fact, really roundabout.

Jersey Number 10 : 49

Jersey Number 15 : 14

Jersey Number 21 : 2

Jersey Number 22 : 34

But why does Rugby Union make this kind of stuff so hard to find out?

And there was a time when rugby stats were available on https://www.espn.com/rugby/

But, unlike American sports, football, cricket, and pretty much every other team sport it’s reliant on talkback callers with home prepared spreadsheets to offer truths, or otherwise.

It’s probably time for rugby union to drag themselves into the 21^st century.

Rugby Union in this country sure has a long roll call of shills.  Maybe when they are not just spinning the party line they could put a bit of effort into developing a resource that could actually be of some use to everyone.

It seems strange that our national sport is so off the pace in this regard.  With the rise of Fantasy Leagues and the likes people thrive on stats.  For example who has scored the most tries for the All Blacks playing at No 8?  That should be resolved in under a minute, but it’s not; it would require going through notebooks.