Jonny McCormick

In fact, Murphy's assist was the longest try assist pass for Ulster since @Stuart_Mc12's 28 metre effort for a Rob Baloucoune try against Munster on New Year's Day 2023.

The assists for Werner Kok's hattrick v Stormers had a combined distance of 66 metres and were the three longest try assist passes by @UlsterRugby this season: 27m - Murphy ➡️ Kok (4th minute) 21m - Doak ➡️ Kok (28th minute) 18m - Lowry ➡️ Kok (69th minute)

Bruno Fernandes is closing in on one of the Premier League's standout assist seasons – but how does he actually define an assist? @ManUtd's skipper sat down with @OptaAnalyst's Matt Furniss to break down his 2025/26 numbers, powered by #Opta data. ➡️ bit.ly/4eXjzGi

Zac Ward stats and rankings in the Challenge Cup this season: 20 defenders beaten (=1st) 6 line breaks (=2nd) 265 metres gained (3rd) 9.1m average gain (3rd*) 86% gainline success (2nd*) 50% tackle evasion (=4th*) *min. 20 carries #suftum

@IanLazenby3 @aunulahehe @Murray_Kinsella @OptaJonny Menoncello played three games at inside centre so missed out to Stuart McCloskey rather than Freeman - he was 8th best player overall.

@aunulahehe @Murray_Kinsella @OptaJonny Makes a mockery of that list

Stuart McCloskey, Caelan Doris, and Tadhg Beirne make the @OptaJonny team of the Six Nations, which is based on their Opta Index player scores. Lots of other nice Six Nations data in their championship review piece: theanalyst.com/articles/great…

5 - Stuart McCloskey's assist for Robert Baloucoune's try was his fifth in @SixNationsRugby this year, no player has more (level with Matthieu Jalibert). Distribution.

Stuart McCloskey's assist for Baloucoune's try was his 5th in this year's Six Nations, four of those five assists have been for Ulster players (Timoney, Stockdale, Baloucoune x 2). #suftum

@rava_ian We have Zac on 117, almost twice as many as any other player.

@jonny_mccormick Jonny, any idea on Wards metres tonight?

Scott Wilson came on in the 48th minute and made 19 carries, at least 6 more than any other player on the pitch 🤯 #suftum

Ireland have made 24 changes in total to their matchday squad during this year's Six Nations, their joint most ever in a single campaign, alongside 2019.

Short piece on how Wales frustrated a slightly predictable Ireland on Friday night... theanalyst.com/articles/wales…

Did an Opta Quiz for the Hands Away podcast, @vittorioangelon had no idea who Opta were and @andrew_trimble disagreed with the first question. Job well done. (Great watch/listen) youtube.com/watch?v=_EXSjy…

With the Six Nations returning again this week, here's something I wrote following Ireland's win against England... theanalyst.com/articles/irela…

The Kick is King in this years #SixNationsRugby - Data from theanalyst.com/articles/six-n…

Ireland have put up the joint most contested kicks so far in this year’s Six Nations (16), but retained just five of them - only England have retained fewer. I took a look at some of the latest kicking trends in the Six Nations👇 theanalyst.com/articles/six-n…

Deep dive on Ireland’s aerial strategy - what the stats say and why striking the right balance between contestable kicks and a slick running game is crucial. With thanks to @andrew_trimble for his insights and @jonny_mccormick for the number crunching: m.independent.ie/sport/rugby/si…

25% of the metres France gained against Ireland came from carries directly after an offoad. I took a look at how France's offloading game hurt Ireland in the M6N opener👇 theanalyst.com/articles/franc…

19 - @FranceRugby made 19 offloads v Ireland, more than twice as many as any other side in R1 of the 2026 @SixNationsRugby; they gained 149 metres as a result of carries after these offloads. Bonus. Read more in our R1 deep dive... 👇👇👇 theanalyst.com/articles/franc…

9 tries + 6 assists in 820 minutes for Connacht in the league and Europe, an average of 1.5 try involvements per 80 minutes - the best rate of any URC player since his debut in January 2024.

4 - Bryn Ward won four turnovers against Stade Français Paris, the most by any player in European competition at the weekend and the most by an @UlsterRugby player in a European fixture since January 2016 (Rob Herring, 4 v Oyonnax). Nuisance.