There's no mystery on this issue. The Opta people are in business to make money. "Proper stats" have value. If the great unwashed are entitled to freebies then you can bet they'll be valueless.

[i"The people at Opta watch every match and record every action, good and bad. They award points to each player for the positive things he does and take then off him for any obvious mistakes or errors.

They then add a weighing to this dependent on the time in the game, the position on the pitch and the score at the time. Scoring a 50-metre try under the post in the 50th minute when your team are already 50 points in front does not earn you as many points as it would if you were five points behind with 50 seconds remaining".[/i

This is why stats are not entirely to be trusted. Think they're not bad markers in forward play. But for backs it tells little

Eg. Shaul v hardaker

Shaul has 7 more tries
More metres
Double metres per carry nearly
Less errors
Less pens
Less missed tackles
More try assists
Double clean breaks

Hardaker has built up stats for making more carries few more offloads n more tackles
Not really effective or massively useful stats for a fullback. But opta scoring

The most ridiculous selection is Mellor over sandow. Sandow has a hand both in scoring and assists in 23 tries. Nearest is 16.

What about utility players- players like sutcliffe, burrow, Hinchcliffe, who play in more than one position-sometimes in the same game? If hardaker plays on the wing and earns "winger" points are they just added to his o stall points?
Michael Lawrence has played centre and then in the second row for the early part of the season. Played the last 3 games at loose forward and put in over 150 tackles in those three games alone!