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Former England would-be Stooke to stay in France
By Ian Cameron
English lock Elliott Stooke is set to continue his rugby journey in the Top 14 by extending his time with Montpellier as a World Cup joker.
Although uncapped, Stooke participated in a wider England training camps in 2018 and 2019. The 28-year-old will become a free agent following the upcoming tournament.
In January, Stooke made the decision to join the ranks of the Top 14, following in the footsteps of other ex-Wasps players after the demise of the club, signing with Montpellier until the end of last season.
At that time, Montpellier held the title of reigning French champions. Stooke's move came after a short-term injury cover deal at Bristol.
He had sustained a fibula fracture playing for Wasps back in May during a match against Sale.
Stooke made his return to the pitch during the Barbarians' English club tour in November and subsequently joined Bristol as a short-term signing on December 2. During his time with Bristol, he featured in three matches, including an appearance in a European Challenge Cup game against Perpignan.
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URC us doing very well with it’s competitiveness given that each group has it’s own salary caps and entirely different makeups, from clubs, to provinces, to franchises and regions. One group might be teams from the most populace country with the biggest rugby base while another the smallest, with the least amount of rugby players to chose from.
I would also be interested in a average clock length (don’t need to go into the whole BIP hole) showing how long the last phases are taking (because one team is trying to still alter the match points outcome in some way) to complete before the game finally ends. I don’t know if its more common this year but in general I wonder if its a stat that can show how good games are/were?
You really had the same reversed 10 points lead % as you had lead changes after the 75th?
Some of these values while standing out numerically against each other have a much less correlative impact than some that tighter differences which might only stick out a small amount. While SRP’s ones might not necessarily be such examples (and here I’m still going off the basic principle that everyone knew this was happening, even though I was challenged about that assumption) they have had the advantage of the fixtures being were doctored even more than normal. In this instance its irrelevant whether they were doctored or not of course, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that there hasn’t been a lot of cross over of worst v best yet. Maybe it just feels like that because the worst are so much better this year? I definitely think that it is undeniable that all the bottom teams (that remain) have gotten better.
So I would be very interested in another weight graph of the games still, but regardless I don’t think it’s fair for SRP to claim anything over the other leagues yet. Certainly as I have said numerous times about the Top 14, it’s sub par compared to what it’s billed up to be, but that is the only league in this group that has promotion and relegation, which is the antitheses of a competitive league, so a trade off there.
Thank you very much for sharing your research though Dmitri, I hope you find another topic to get interested about!
Go to commentsI can’t believe Rugby Australia thought the NZRU would accept 1-12 split. I’m sure if the split was more even then the NZRU would’ve made it work.
It’s even worse when the NZRU relatively recently gave Rugby Australia a bigger cut of the Super Rugby broadcast.
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