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CJ Stander takes on the Scotland defence. Inpho/Billy Stickland
Number Crunching

Irish players top stats for carries, clean breaks and turnovers in opening Six Nations round

CJ Stander, Rob Kearney and Robbie Henshaw racked up some impressive numbers against Scotland, albeit in defeat.

IRELAND AREN’T SITTING pretty on the one table that counts but a number of Joe Schmidt’s players recorded impressive numbers on the opening weekend of Six Nations action in 2017.

Schmidt’s side are sitting in a lowly fifth position on the back of their 27-22 defeat to Scotland on Saturday after delivering a performance that failed to reach the heights of their November Tests.

Ireland enjoyed plenty of possession against the Scots and a consequence of that is three Irish players — CJ Stander, Jamie Heaslip and Robbie Henshaw — led the way for carries over the weekend.

Stander tops the pile with 24 carries, followed by his back-row colleague Heaslip (21) and Leinster centre Henshaw (19). The France duo of Virimi Vakatawa and Louis Picamoles complete the top five.

Stander also featured prominently in the turnover numbers, his two steals were only matched by Scotland’s John Barclay and England pair Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell.

Paddy Jackson’s four clean breaks against the Scots was also the highest figure of the weekend with England’s Elliot Daly, Wales’s Liam Williams and France winger Noa Nakaitaci one behind the Ulster out-half on three.

Ireland’s backs also featured prominently in the defenders beaten category with fullback Rob Kearney tied atop the leaderboard with Picamoles on seven.

Henshaw is third on the list with six defenders beaten while Jackson went past five Scots at Murrayfield.

Picamoles features strongly across the statistics, the damaging number eight also topping the charts for offloads (4) and metres made (131).

Full stats:


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