Publications
Partners
He was a picture of composure at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, and now Springbok flyhalf Handre Pollard has been rated as one of the best goal-kickers in international rugby.
Register your interest for the British & Irish Lions tickets in South Africa 2021
A South African website, goalkickers.co.za, monitors kicks at goal in major competitions all over the world. What separates the site from others is that it includes a difficulty rating for each kick, which is then fed into an algorithm to determine who the form kickers in world rugby are.
In a story published on Wales Online on Friday, the data was crunched in an effort to find out who, according to the statistics, is the best goal-kicker in the world right now.
Factors used to determine the best kickers included:
- Distance of the kick
- Angle of the kick
- Altitude
- Side of the field and foot used
- Score difference (in indicate pressure)
- Home or away
- First half or second half
Based on the above it was found that distance and angle of the kick carry by far the most weight.
The findings placed two Welshmen - Leigh Halfpenny and Dan Biggar - at number one and number two, respectively.
Scotland's Greg Laidlaw was third, England's Owen Farrell fourth, Argentina's Nicolas Sanchez fifth and South Africa's Pollard came sixth on the list.
All Blacks flyhalf Beauden Barrett, better known for his running game and distribution, ranks dead last out of the 52 kickers that were ranked.
While statistics from franchise and club competitions are taken into account, only Test data has been used.
That includes the Six Nations, Rugby Championship and Rugby World Cup fixtures dating back to 2015, but incoming series and November internationals each year were not included.
- Compiled by Sport24 staff
