Numbers Don't Lie: A Look at the All Blacks vs the Springboks

Defending world Champions South Africa suffered a 35-20 defeat to New Zealand in their round two fixture of the Rugby Chammpionship earlier today. A physical encounter, the All blacks now go top of the championship log. 

Both teams enjoyed a fair amount of succes on the defensive end with the New Zealand completing 106/127 tackles (83%) while South Africa, the busier of the two, completed 123/151 (81%) tackles after getting off to an uncharacteristically poor start defensively.

Goal Kickking:

NZ 6/7 (86%) - (50%) 2/4 SA

Rucks:

NZ 91/95 (96%) - (95%) 74/78 SA

Although he was on the losing end, Cheslin Kolbe led the numbers in metres gained, finishing on an outstanding 98m made off 14 carries, closely followed by Will Jordan who made 72m with the same amount of carries. Leading the forwards in metres gained was Shannon Frizzel, as the NZ loose forward finished with 43m gained off only six carries.

Frizell lead the way with defenders beaten with nine, closely followed by teammate Will Jordan who beat beat seven defenders to finish second on the list. Third with defenders beaten was Damien Willense for the Boks, beating 5 while fellow South African Kolbe bet four of his own.

Jordan again topped the numbers in carries (12) and line breaks (3)  as well as offloads (2), while South Africa's Kwagga Smith led in tackles with 15 tackles made, closely followed by Shannon Frizzell.

Will Jordan was the leader in line breaks after a spectacular performance,

On Defence Kwagga Smith topped the tackle charts with 15 followed by Shannon Frizell on 13. Eben Etzebeth and Pieter-Steph du Toit (who only played 36 minutes) finished on 11 each