Me and my friend were having an argument on who covers the most ground in one match between football and rugby. In the football matches it normally says how far they have covered and it is around 10Km but I have never seen official statitics for rugby league players?

I would guess it is rugby players as in football a lot of the passes are from one end of the pitch to the other, and the players tend to 'hover' in or near their area.

Rugby players move up and down the field both when attacking and in defence, and I would guess that the only player who doesn't move as much is the full back and that is only in defence as he stands back from the defensive line!!

I reckon a midfielder covers more ground than rugby players.

Not saying what's right or wrong just that obviously soccer is 10 mins longer and also there is more player rotation in RL.

Reading somewhere that Refs often run the equivelent of 8 miles in a football match

but to offset that the ball is "live" for longer in a Rugby League game.

True, in your average Premiership match last season, fans only saw the ball in the field on play for a total of 61 minutes, that's probably more than Rugby Union though, to be fair.

I'm not sure about Rugby League or Football, but in a recent Interntational Union game, one prop forward astonished everyone by exceeding 100yds in a rare 80 minute game.
He was rested the following week due to fatigue.

In comparison the full back kicked the ball for a total of 14,739 metres distance in the same game.

The Ref also awarded 127 penalties, of which 6 were understood by the crowd.

A forward will cover 4-6 miles per game as I remember from somewhere.

Probably rugby players. Footballers are usually in a certain area of the pitch according to their position, rugby players are constantly up and down the pitch with every set of six.

This kind of stat needs forwarding to Phil Clarke! He is good at coming up with precise stats

i.e. how many trys scored within the first ten mins, from kicks, off the back of penalties, by wingers who have played in the NRL and SL.

Would you need to pro rata it due to football being 10 mins longer than rugby league?

I recall some source or other stated Roy Keane covered over 10,000 metres during a particular game but he may have been chasing that ref mentioned earlier!

I think its footballers to be honest. Players have specific places on the pitch, but that varies massively depending on whether the team is attacking or defending. MIdfielders like Keane or Gerrard who are considered box to box players, are almost constantly moving, and although the ball is in play less than rugby, when it is in play there is more movement.

On average you get a set of 6 per minute. So you could do some basic maths around how far you would go in defence and attack based on that

in Champions League games they measure this - when a player gets subbed it shows their personal distance, and the team average. The team average is usually about 10km - although I dont know if this includes the goalkeeper or not.

Willie poching covers more ground than beckford did for us last night

I remember an article in the times about this a few months ago.

On average a footballer runs 4.6km per game
(not including goalkeepers)
On average an RU player runs 5.9km per game
And an RL player runs 8.7 km, on average, per game

Tried to find a link but was unsuccessful, It was also published in the RL Express when it came out. The study, suprisingly enough, was done by the Sports science dept at Leeds Met.

Everyday is a School Day and with that in mind a Bit Of Maths for ya............

Obviously this is highly averaged but interesting enough and keeps me entertained at work. So...

Length of a League Match:80 minutes
Average Number of Defensive Sets per Minute: 1
Number of Defensive Sets per Match: 80

Each defensive set you line up and run forward to meet the attacking team. As I said its all about averages so sometimes you'll meet the attackers early (say when a defensive marker tackles) and sometimes they make 10yards plus. i'll work on an average that an attacking team makes 5 yards everytime they run the ball. This is usually 5 times and then followed by a kick so the defensive team are going up to meet the attacking team and then retreating 10yards 6 times in every set.

So for each of the 6 tackles in a defensive set you run forward and retreat 10 and this is done approximately 80 times in a match. Per defensive set a team covers approx 78 metres (working on an average of going forward 5 yards to meet the attacking play and then retreating 10 yards.) This is done 80 times in a match so therefore in defence a rugby team will cover (on Average) 6240 metres. And thats ignoring possible breaks an attacking team could make and the kick the defensive team need to run back to retrieve. The defensive team will always cover this ground pretty much.

Now when attacking its different because you dont have to retreat 10 metres. Seen as i've worked on an average of 5 yards lost per by the defensive team I'll again use this meaning the attacking team makes 25yards plus the kick or final play (5yards 5 times in theory). Thats approximately 23 metres per attackin set. So if your attacking once every minute and making 23 metres each time that means in a match you'll cover 1840 metres in attack per match. That is excluding the final play of the set which is usually a kick and chase or like and which is probably wheer you will make alot of ground. Add up the defensive metres ran (6240) and the Attacking metres ran (1840) and you come to a total of 8080 metres per match.

As I said before that is greatly averaged and it is an innacutate figure in theory. But it is pretty much a minimum a player will run per match because it excludes breaks, kick chases, dummy running and penalties where your taken back ten. In football when they say a player has ran 10'000 metres (or 6 miles per match) your nearly always talking about the midfielders. I bet half of a football team never come close to running that far., wheras in Rugby your a unit, and your a line and your all running the same as a bare minimum. Pretty much the only one who wont will be the full back. I think its safe to say though that rugby players cover at least 8000metres a match and this is a VERY bare minimum.

I reckon all in all they'll cover alot more metres than footballers as a whole. Whats more....they wont be diving any of those metres either



I appreciate that this is pointless really as its grossly averaged and highly innacurate but i think its definately highlights a possible and reasonable minimim figure of ground players covered. entertained me for an hour and all............

you seemed to have made the assumption that a player defends for 80mins and attachks for 80mins.

No, Ive based it on a team getting one defensive set per minute and one attacking set per minute. As I said its grossly averages a match and plans on changes possession fairly and after 6 tackles not allowing for errors, penalties etc etc per set. I was always going to lose in terms of accuracy because I was trying to predict something which is different every match and differnt every week but i think as a rough thought its pretty near...

In what game are there 80 attacking sets for each team?

Saw a game at the weekend where there were 27 of these in 80 minutes.