Who is the Queen of Nuisance Land or Top of the Props? A statistical end-of-season PWR feast

Statistics are fun – 100% of the time.

These days, there’s a rabbit warren of narrative-illuminating metrics available to us in Premiership Women’s Rugby – a coded looking glass you can tumble through into a world where, somehow, the objectivity of performance only enhances the joy of it all. A mathsy, constantly-evolving kaleidoscope, which gently dials up the saturation of the patterns being woven up before us.

Ironically, there’s no stat to back this up, but we’ve simply never had better resources in the women’s game, and so – as the dust settles on 18 mesmeric PWR rounds, the bell sounds, and all but four wacky racers exit the track – let’s cherry-pick a few digits worth savouring.

At the risk of making her sound like an Ed Sheeran album, if Charlotte Fray were a mathematical operation, she’d be a multiply. The forward – tall, powerful, and fearless – was named Leicester’s Young Player of the Season in 2023, but this was the year she truly announced herself in the PWR.

Over 882 arresting minutes, the 24-year-old put in more dominant tackles than anyone else, charged her way into the top ten for both carries and gain line dents, and led Tigers out for the first time.

At the start of the campaign, Tom Hudson predicted she’d become the club’s first homegrown Red Rose. By the midway point, he was asking what more the enforcer had to do to get a look-in with John Mitchell. At this stage – it’s a case of ‘when’, not ‘if’.

On a similarly inexorable hurtle towards the test match arena is Nicole Wythe – a flanker who’s spoken about by coaches league-wide, in tones both hushed and effusive.

Harlequins’ social team, quite brilliantly, married up some of her highlights with the wackiest WWE commentary they could find – just weeks after a shoulder injury ended her season – and the same bold brushstroke underlined both her near-peerless physicality, and how badly the Londoners would miss her.

Per hit-out, she’s mixing with elite company for ruck entries and dominant collisions – plus produces 15 carries, and tackles at 90%.

There are no prizes for guessing the league’s most inexhaustible operators. Of all the athletes we won’t see again this season, Kate Zackary and Poppy Leitch are the pair who most deserve the opportunity to put their feet up – if you base such conclusions on match involvements.

They get stuck in everywhere, at all times – and all whilst exhibiting unquantifiable, but truly world class, leadership. If we were to write a similar exploration – but one celebrating presence – we’d be seeing these two names again.

There’s the small matter of a London derby on Saturday, in which the league’s most pinpoint tackler – Kelsey Clifford – will be compressing Harlequins on 93% of her attempts, but Shya Pinnock’s not far behind, and there are a few other Trailfinders who’ve thrilled their way into the charts.

Lisa Thomson hands out break assists like sweets, Grace White’s nonchalantly lethal, and Julia Schell’s got one of the most complete attacking games there are.

 

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With Pancake Day just around the corner, let’s address how much sweeter the league has been for its unprecedentedly generous dollop of pre-World Cup Canadian maple syrup. Krissy Scurfield is the closest thing the PWR has to a literal bolt of lightning – as attested by her 14 tries, wing-leading dominant tackles, backs-topping turnovers, and what she does to opposition heart rates – and both Maddy Grant and Gabby Senft are athletic flanking ambrosia.

Julia Omokhuale crosses the gain line with 70% of her efforts, and DaLeaka Menin’s 39-minute outing against Sale in Round 15 was, perhaps, the cameo of the season. 12 dominant carries, 40 post-contact metres, eight beaten defenders, and two turnovers. Oh, Canada.

The best new metric on the block (and there are plenty – thanks to our brilliant stats guru Sam and the super computer Oval Insights have built for these very fact-finding indulgences) is the ‘nuisance’ one.

Players are now, accurately, logged each time they’re a bother – a pain in opponents’ proverbials – and the Queen of Nuisanceland? Neve Jones herself – who fits more aggravation into her 5’2 frame than Springbok fans do into an ‘Antoine Dupont is the G.O.A.T’ comments section.

Arithmetically, she’s been a menace 49 times so far – streaks ahead of the next most irksome, May Campbell and Georgia Evans – but it’s her ruck selection which is most impressive. Jones doesn’t get stuck in at every opportunity, but – when there’s trouble to inflict – she rolls up her sleeves, and more than half her involvements brand her an arch, and consummate, nuisance.

Lightning’s Alev Kelter beats more defenders per 80 minutes than anyone; Chiefs’ Hope Rogers has scored 10 tries in 10, whilst being in the top two props for dominant collisions and post-contact metres; and Quins centre Lagi Tuima’s masterful string-pulling – six try assists, 17 break assists, and more balls out the back than any other twelve – are also the sort of figures scrawled onto commentary sheets with relish.

Loughborough’s win percentage when Helena Rowland goes the distance is 80, the clip of Ilona Maher’s first PWR score on the TNT Rugby Instagram has over one and a half million views, and 37% of Sale’s tries have directly involved an Italian.

Statistics only tell a sliver of the story, of course: they’re just one lens through which to view sport, and -come the business end of this captivating season – you want to ride on emotion, swatting data aside in favour of story and spectacle.

But they are, as promised at the start of this numerical feast, plenty of fun – and will make you sound terribly clever in the queue for a Tiki Tonga flat white, come the final on March 16th.

You’re welcome. See you there.