Stormers first try a classic example of what we have missed….

The reason the running stat is hard to believe is because Dud’s numbers game after game are unbelievably bad….unless by chance ( he never creates anything) he makes a clean break. But 1 meter in 5 runs, which means he is stopped behind the gain line, is truly shockingly bad.

4 metres laterally…zero going forward. I believe the stat is calculated in terms of the gain line. He never crosses it. I have searched for a definition, but haven’t found it. So my guess is only forward metres over the gain line are counted and negative metres are ignored.

He never gained 4 metres he got back to the gain line. All the metres before his pass in the second run were unopposed and behind the gain line.

The stats may not be perfect but will be specific. 

I’ll look at it again later Dave. My guess is metres gained for a player is over the gain line where there is one…and after he gets the ball on a kick or an interception. 

Which makes sense because those are meters gained by the team…whereas in a run behind the gain line the team makes no meters. They started at the gain line.

So I checked the Bulls game and the sum of the meters gained by the players is exactly the meters gained by the team, which tends to confirm my original impression.

And I guess it’s not net metres….metres lost are wiped out, so when they say metres gained they are talking about gross meters gained.