2024 could easily have been a case of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’ following a World Cup year, but it was anything but that with another bumper year at both Test and club level. 

Before the year comes to an end, Planet Rugby takes a look behind the eye-opening stats from across the rugby union world.

Olympic Games

The Paris Olympic Games were the highlight of the sporting world in 2024, and the Rugby Sevens certainly played a huge role in that. With so many games and so many talking points, this section will look at the wider numbers that represent the success of the events – both men’s and women’s.

500,000 – The number of tickets sold across the full week of Olympic Sevens. The shortened format was a roaring success in France, with record-high attendances on multiple days, including 69,000 for the opening day of the men’s tournament and 66,000 for the women’s.

389 – Across both the Men’s and Women’s tournaments, 389 tries were scored in total. 180 of those came from the men’s, with 209 coming from the women’s.

2 – This Olympic Games saw two new teams medal for the first time. In the Men’s game, Antoine Dupont and the rest of the France squad won their country’s first-ever medal in Sevens as they took home the Gold, and the USA also earned their maiden Olympic medal for Sevens as Ilona Maher and her team won Bronze in the women’s tournament.

70 – That’s the total number of points eventual World Rugby Women’s Sevens Player of the Year Maddison Levi scored in her six outings at the Olympics. She notched a whopping 14 tries for Australia on their way to a fourth-placed finish.

35 million – That’s how many people watched Ireland’s Erin King lift teammate Emily Lane above her head from a restart in a brilliant feat of strength.

3 million – Speaking of social media, rugby’s biggest star was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 at the Olympics this year, with USA Women’s player Maher shooting up to become the most followed rugby player on social media. After her exploits for the USA on their journey to a Bronze Medal and her time on Dancing with the Stars, the latest Bristol Bears recruit has gained a mammoth 3 million followers and is now pushing north of 4 million on Instagram alone.

The Year of the Springbok

If 2024 was given a name, it would probably be the Year of the Springbok, with Rassie Erasmus’ men kicking on from where they left off in 2023 – an impressive feat considering they won the World Cup.

Across the season, Erasmus’ charges won 11 of their 13 Tests – an 84% win record -, but it was the way they did this that should frighten other teams. The Springboks have become known for their power game up front and their dominant scrum, but the introduction of new attack coach Tony Brown saw the introduction of a new Boks identity, an attack-minded, free-flowing identity, and that’s represented in their stats.

South Africa notched an impressive 57 tries in their 13 Tests this calendar year, an average of 4.4 per game, with Makazole Mapimpi topping the individual charts with six. Fellow back three players Aphelele Fassi and Kurt-Lee Arendse weren’t too far behind either on five.

Outside of this, they were able to have a lot of success in the points-scoring department overall, with 451 in total, an average tally of 34.7 per game. Fly-half Handre Pollard found his way to the top this year too, with 74 points to his name, with breakthrough star Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu coming in second with 52.

This year has also been a time to blood in some new faces, and boy did Rassie get a chance to look at some different players. In total, 50 different players were capped this year in their 13 Tests, with 12 debutants included in that. Wilco Louw also earned his first caps since 2021 during the Autumn Nations Series.

Finally, the stats that count are trophies, and South Africa claimed their first Rugby Championship title since 2019 this year too. To cap things off, they won all four of their Tests in November for the first time since 2013.

Simply a brilliant year for the Boks, but can they go again in 2025?

Breakthrough stars announced on world stage

A number of young stars burst onto the world stage in 2024, with the three main ones being Wallace Sititi, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso – the nominees for the prestigious World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year.

Between them, the three men won 26 caps (Feyi-Waboso and Feinberg-Mngomezulu 8, Sititi 10), but crucially they have all gone on to become key men for their sides since their debuts.

Not only are their cap totals impressive after making their debuts this year, but they have certainly contributed to their sides’ fortunes this year. England man Feyi-Waboso has grabbed a tidy haul of five tries in his maiden Test year, Feinberg-Mngomezulu ended his season with 52 points – the second-highest total for the Boks – and Sititi boasts a 70% win record in the games he’s played in the Black jersey.

All three men are also 22 and under and should have their best rugby ahead of them.

Growing powers?

Whilst the year was dominated by one team, there are certainly some sides in the international game making waves.

Argentina secured their best-ever finish in the Rugby Championship after a strong campaign. They ended this year’s edition with three wins – their highest-ever tally – and also beat all three of the other teams in the same year – also for the first time. Los Pumas also inflicted a record defeat on Australia with their 67-27 demolition job in Santa Fe.

These results certainly show a marked improvement from Felipe Contipomi’s side, but the stats around this also make pleasant reading. They scored 20 tries in their six Championship fixtures this year, an average of 3.3 per game. They also racked up 170 points across the Championship, an average of 28.3 per game.

Despite the heavy defeats to South Africa and New Zealand – both a week after their own famous victories – Argentina also stood a chance of winning the tournament heading into the final game, which has never happened before.

Another growing power that out-performed expectation was Italy, who also had a stellar Six Nations this year. The Azzurri, under the stewardship of new head coach Gonzalo Quesada, finished the 2024 campaign with an impressive 2 wins and a draw from their five Tests, but again it’s the stuff around these results that should highlight their marked improvement.

Italy scored 94 points in this year’s Championship, an average of 15.3 per game. This might not seem like a number to write home about, but when you factor in the fact they only scored 60 (10 per game) in the 2022 edition it should show just how quickly they have turned things around.

Toulouse the kings of the club game

The club game also saw some brilliant action this year, but the main talking point will be Toulouse. The French side clinched a historic double this season as they lifted both the Top 14 title and the Champions Cup, and they were simply superb throughout.

Toulouse ended the 2023/24 campaign with 26 wins from their 36 matches in both the league and Europe – a 72% record – and played some beautiful rugby around that too. They notched 117 tries in the Top 14 campaign (103 in the regular season and 14 in their two play-off games) and also secured the biggest-ever win in Top 14 final history with an emphatic 59-3 win over Bordeaux.