World Cup bolter Ruaridh McConnochie has been a revelation this season. The 7s silver medalist turned premiership star has not only done enough to capture the attention of Eddie Jones, but also earnt the 27 year old a 4 year lucrative contract with Bath. But is he actually worth that deal or have Bath made a mistake?

Looking at premiership attacking stats this season in wingers of over 40 runs in starts, McConnochie comes out number 1 overall in the winger attacking rating. Which is judging how well a player makes metres, beats defenders and makes clean breaks on a per run basis compared to their piers. So the average winger in all categories scores 1.0.

Here is a look at the stats

Rank Name Runs Metres Clean Breaks Def Beaten Rating 1 R McConnochie 44 8.18 0.30 0.75 1.89 2 O Thorley 89 9.98 0.29 0.61 1.82 3 M Watson 68 8.71 0.32 0.49 1.69 4 D Strettle 57 8.37 0.40 0.28 1.62 5 T Naiyaravoro 200 8.12 0.24 0.51 1.49 6 A Lewington 62 9.03 0.27 0.27 1.37 7 D Solomona 122 8.71 0.26 0.28 1.33 8 J Olowofela 51 8.59 0.20 0.41 1.33 9 S Maitland 57 7.28 0.33 0.19 1.31 10 L Morahan 134 7.36 0.22 0.34 1.25 11 S Cordero 106 5.90 0.21 0.44 1.24 12 C Sharples 93 6.66 0.27 0.28 1.24 13 S Rokoduguni 105 6.57 0.21 0.38 1.22 14 C Murley 45 7.38 0.24 0.27 1.21 15 T Collins 127 7.96 0.21 0.25 1.16 16 J Bassett 107 6.46 0.25 0.22 1.13 17 B McGuigan 82 6.29 0.23 0.27 1.13 18 B Heem 141 7.16 0.17 0.34 1.12 19 T Pincus 40 7.93 0.20 0.23 1.10 20 J Adams 71 6.80 0.20 0.28 1.09 21 M Yarde 48 5.54 0.19 0.31 1.04 22 M Banahan 105 7.50 0.15 0.28 1.03 23 J Nowell 61 5.16 0.08 0.52 1.02 24 J Cokanasiga 105 6.56 0.19 0.24 1.02 25 J Holmes 48 8.38 0.13 0.27 1.01 26 A Tuala 59 6.69 0.14 0.32 1.00 27 S Sinoti 179 5.37 0.11 0.43 1.00 28 A Cuthbert 102 5.55 0.15 0.34 0.99 29 J May 137 5.95 0.17 0.28 0.98 30 T Marshall 68 5.84 0.16 0.29 0.98 31 A Leiua 141 7.16 0.21 0.12 0.95 32 Z Kibirige 87 5.59 0.11 0.37 0.95 33 N Earle 199 6.50 0.12 0.28 0.91 34 T O’Flaherty 97 6.22 0.11 0.28 0.88 35 O Woodburn 88 5.25 0.17 0.19 0.86 36 V Goneva 131 4.06 0.11 0.32 0.81 37 G Ibitoye 47 4.64 0.06 0.26 0.66 38 R Chisholm 44 4.07 0.09 0.16 0.59

Average

6.23 0.16 0.31 1

It’s difficult to know how well this actually translates to being actually good at attacking but one would assume they correlate, and also not enough has been done to quantify the impact of making metres compared to line breaks or defenders beaten has. So here they have just been valued equally.

But with some great attacking stats, defensive intelligence and prowess under the high ball, it’s clear to see why Eddie Jones has decided to take him to Japan and I think it’s a very astute bit of selection from England. So surely it seems counter intuitive to suggest that Bath made an error for re-signing a player who’s going to the world cup with one of the best teams on the planet. But what we have to think about is supply and demand and how replaceable wingers are.

International rugby doesn’t have to worry about this, a team can just pick the best players to represent the nation. But premiership rugby has a salary cap (Although some will dispute its effectiveness) and the fact money is no an unlimited resource shown by almost every club running at a deficit. Spending money efficiently is really important. And that’s why it’s important to think about supply and demand when assessing the value of certain positions and certain players.

Obviously McConnochie at the top of the list is impressive, but more interesting to me are some of the players in the bottom ten. None of them many people would say are bad wingers. And yet if we just picked premiership wingers based on this, they wouldn’t be a starting winger, some wouldn’t even make the bench. The big name in that bottom 10 though is obviously Johnny May.

May is a winger that would get into a lot of people’s world 15. Never mind being a top 24 winger in the premiership, he might be considered the best winger in the world by some. He did score a lot of this season which many might consider to be the most important job of the winger, but a large part of that can be right place right time. It’s something that is created by the team not the winger themsevles. Obviously May has more to his game than just attacking, he’s good on the counter, defensively astute, good under the high ball and there’s no one in world rugby I’d rather have haring after kick behind the defence. But we’ve already seen he might be replaceable.

Somewhat of a rarity in rugby is a trade. But Leicester and Gloucester exchanged Ed Slater and Johnny May and each side’s respective fortunes have changed since. There’s obviously more to it than that and we don’t know the financials involved but it does seem Gloucester have won this trade in hindsight. Not only did they get rid of a presumably expensive winger who misses fixtures due to international commitments, they acquired a lock who’s probably in the top 10 second rows in the league.

The other interesting examples in the bottom 10 are the Exeter wingers O’Flaherty and Woodburn (Cuthbert is bottom 11) These guys have done pretty well for Exeter, but they were both seen as surplus to requirements to Bath and Cardiff. A similar story happened with ex Saracens winger James Short. Exeter have been the consensus number 2 side in the premiership for multiple years now, even winning the title in 2017. And they’ve mostly done it with wingers who don’t take up much cap room. There have been exceptions to that with guys like Cordero and Nowell. But Nowell was an academy product so his wage would have counted less towards the salary cap until he was 24. Where Exeter have bolstered their squad with signings has primarily been in the pack. And it’s possible it has worked because good forwards give you a better chance of winning than good wingers.

It’s also quite possible that Ruaridh McConnochie’s own rise is almost proof of his diminished value, although that does seem bizarre. But McConnochie wasn’t even the only 7s player in the top3. Marcus Watson being up there shows there could be a gold mine of cheap talent, especially with nations such as Kenya and Sri Lanka being able to produce good 7s teams but not competitive 15s sides means their could be some fantastic wingers not getting the chance to showcase their skills in 15. McConnochie isn’t even the only winger Bath have seemingly found from the wilderness. Semesa Rokuduguni was in the army and had mainly played rugby in Germany, after being given a few games for the Bath 2nd team he impressed enough to get a contract. And now he’s a Bath legend and one of the most potent try scorers the west country side have had in their history.

It’s not just 7s, and lower levels of rugby that teams could be finding good useful wingers in. There’s obviously rugby league which has often been fruitful ground for finding wingers but also it might become an attractive option to American footballers who don’t quite make the NFL but may be more attuned to rugby. This argument is actually very much influenced by the debate in the NFL surrounding running backs. The analytics community is quite bullish on the fact that running backs have very little value because of how replaceable they are.

I think teams should value positions like tight head prop, ball winning loose forwards, fly halves and full backs where really good ones are hard to find and there is a larger gap in quality between the best starters and the worst starters.

And this is by no means definitive. More in depth data may tell us this hypothesis is wrong. But I think it’s an interesting debate to be had. And as a Bath fan, I’m going to continue to adore watching Ruaridh McConnochie and Semesa Rokodoguni in blue, black and white.