The Breakdown, a rugby talk show in New Zealand hosted by three former All Blacks, has been caught spreading distorted stats about Springbok players.
Springbok powerhouse Pieter-Steph du Toit scooped another Man of the Match award for his performance against the Wallabies, but there was a discrepancy in the statistics featured on The Breakdown for one of the facet of his game.
Pieter-Steph du Toit almost always delivers when he dons the Springbok jersey and that was the case again in the Rugby Championship Test against the Wallabies in Brisbane this past weekend.
The blindside flanker was asked at the 11th hour to switch from the side of the scrum to No 5 lock following the late withdrawal of RG Snyman due to injury, and he did so with aplomb.
During its in-depth analysis of the weekend’s Rugby Championship results, former All Black trio and hosts of the talk show Jeff Wilson, Mils Muliaina and John Kirwan were joined by special guest Tim Horan, who is a former Wallaby.
During the Springbok versus Wallabies segment of the show, graphics of both teams as well as the top individual performers’ match stats were shown on screen, but there were two glaring errors pertaining to two Springbok players.
According to The Breakdown’s infographic, Pieter-Steph du Toit made a whopping 34 tackles, when in actual fact — as confirmed by Sanzaar and OPTA stats — the Springbok made 13 hits.
Additionally, The Breakdown also had Springbok Ben-Jason Dixon down for 15 tackles completed, when he actually made 19.