Premiership stats leaders: tackles, turnovers, carries & more

Round 1 of the Premiership kicked off this past weekend and played out largely as expected in terms of results, barring Newcastle’s Falcons surprise victory over Bath at The Rec.

We turn to the stats to see which names came out on top from the first round.

Tackles

Bath openside Miles Reid gave a valiant account of himself on defence against Newcastle, pulling off the highest number of tackles for Round 1 – 27.

Andrew Kitchener (Worcester) and Scott Baldwin (Harlequins) made the second and third highest with 20 and 18 respectively.  

Carries

New kid on the block Gary Graham (Newcastle) set his personal campaign off to a good start with an enthusiastic performance on attack, topping the carries stat with 23.

Behind Graham, Exeter’s Tom O’Flaherty and Wasps flanker Jack Willis each made 18 carries while two South Africans in Ruan Ackermann (Gloucester) and Francois Venter (Worcester) made 15 apiece.

Metres gained 

Bath winger Joe Cokanasiga racked up the highest number of metres in this first round with 109.

Exiles’ flyer Ollie Hassell-Collins contributed 95 while Bristol’s fullback Piers O’Conor managed 92.

Defenders beaten

Exeter’s Argentinian fullback Facundo Cordero and talented young Wasps flyhalf Jacob Umaga both beat 8 defenders on the weekend.

The next highest was 6, by Jasper Wiese (Leicester), Nick David (Worcester), Alfie Barbeary (Wasps) and Rohan Janse van Rensburg (Sale).

Turnovers won

Flankers Ben Donnell (London Irish) and Jack Willis topped the turnovers stat with 3 steals apiece against Worcester and Bristol respectively  

Clean Breaks

Nick David did good work on the wing for Worcester, completing 4 clean breaks against Exiles.

Henry Purdy and Jack Heenan (both Bristol) and Ollie Hassell-Collins also proved elusive with 3 clean breaks each.