Pace to burn, and then some.
Ulster Rugby’s performance analyst has revealed the province’s fastest, and slowest, players.
Chris Hagan measures the performance levels, heart rates, and a shed-load more of Ulster’s senior stars. Hagan has opened the lid on the players’ fitness and team records.
Hagan reveals that Rory Scholes is the quickest player in the squad. Against Exeter, in a 2014 pre-season game, the versatile back opened up at recorded a speed of 10 metres per second.
Here is Ulster’s top five:
- Rory Scholes – 10 m.p.s
- Craig Gilroy – 9.8 m.p.s
- Tommy Bowe – 9.7 m.p.s
- Sam Arnold – 9.7 m.p.s
- Jared Payne – 9.6 m.p.s
Having spoken to players from Munster and Connacht this season, SportsJOE believes Scholes has set a close to unbeatable bench-mark. Leinster have not provided individual squad records.
Hagan notes that Nick Williams had the biggest collision in recent years when, two seasons ago, he laid out Sean Lamont with a huge tackle. The hit registered an absolute value of 11.4 on Williams’ G.P.S tracker.
To put that into context, a big hit [over 10 G-Force] often gets an absolute value of 8.
The Ulster player that runs most in a game is Paddy Jackson. The out-half has averaged 7.5km in games this season while the most he has covered in a 2015/16 game is 8.6km.
22-year-old scrum-half Dave Shanahan registered the maximum heart rate this season, in training and on the pitch.
The Clontarf native’s heart-rate peaked at 214 beats per minute during a frantic training session. This shaded the astonishing 211bpm registered by Shanahan during the Champions Cup victory over Oyonnax. After the match, Shanahan commented:
“I couldn’t feel my legs.”
The lowest b.p.m in the squad is No.8 Roger Wilson, who peaked at 164 this season. A case of ‘been there, done that, let’s not get too excited’ for the veteran forward.
The player with the least interest in the whole G.P.S malarky? Andrew Trimble.
We suspect he is just livid he’s not in the top five speedsters.
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