Leading Challenge Cup statistics

The pool stage of the European Rugby Challenge Cup is finished for another season and it produced some interesting facts, some of which we list below.  A new name will be on the trophy in Marseille next May as none of the eight quarter-finalists are previous tournament winners. No.1-ranked Toulon were the only club to win all six matches during the pool stage. Rory Kockott’s 23 points (including a hat-trick of tries) in Castres Olympique’s vital Round 6 win at Worcester is an individual scoring record for a Castres player in a Challenge Cup match. Darcy Graham made history in Edinburgh Rugby’s Round 6 win against Agen at BT Murrayfield by becoming the first Edinburgh player to score four tries in a European competition.  The 7-7 Round 6 draw between Zebre Rugby Club and Bristol at Stadio Lanfranchi was the lowest scoring match of this season’s pool stage. Worcester Warriors back Jamie Shillcock finished the pool stage as both the leading points-scorer (67) and try-scorer (5). Edinburgh wing Duhan van der Merwe made the most metres (469) and beat the most defenders (28) during the pool stage. Enisei-STM flanker Mikheil Gachechiladze topped the charts for carries (86), offloads (11) and tackles (92) during the pool stage, the offloads jointly with Scarlets back Steff Evans.