Louis Rees-Zammit and Ben Earl are leading the race to become the top try-scorer in the 2019/20 Gallagher Premiership with the best strike-rate ever recorded.
Research from The Rugby Tipster highlights a number of new records if they continue their scoring form for the rest of the season.
Form scorers clash at Kingsholm
Both will take to the field at Kingsholm on Friday night in a West Country derby that pits together two sides who love to create scoring opportunities.
Rees-Zammit, who has been selected at full-back rather than his usual position on the wing for the visit of the Bristol Bears, took his try tally for the season to a competition-best eight after touching down as a first-half replacement for Jonny May in the Cherry & Whites’ demolition 44-15 job of 14-man Worcester.
Back-rower Earl, meanwhile, made a winning debut for Bristol against his parent club Saracens in Round 14. However he couldn’t add to his seven tries in the 40 minutes he was on the pitch in the gritty 16-12 rain-affected win.
Louis Rees-Zammit leads tryscoring charts
The 22-year-old England international is currently joint second behind Rees-Zammit in the Premiership’s try-scoring charts along with London Irish youngster Ollie Hassell-Collins, Wasps winger Zach Kibirige and new Bears team-mate Luke Morahan.
Rees-Zammit has featured just eight times in the league this season, and has been on the pitch for 614 minutes. This means his eight Premiership tries have been scored at an impressive rate of one every 77 minutes.
Earl’s return of seven tries has come from a combined total of 672 minutes on the pitch, firstly with Saracens and now Bristol. This works out at one try in every 96 minutes.
Current record held by Chris Ashton
According to research from The Rugby Tipster, Chris Ashton currently has the best all-time strike-rate of any of the 15 individuals to win the top Premiership try-scorer accolade, from 2003 onwards.
Ashton, now at Harlequins, scored 16 tries in a stellar 2009/10 campaign for Northampton Saints, at a rate of one every 100 minutes.
While Gloucester have had some brilliant finishers over the years, such as James Simpson-Daniel and Johnny May, they have never had a player finish top of the try-scoring charts before. Therefore Rees-Zammit would be breaking new ground for the club should he stay out in front.
Also, as a 19-year-old, he would become the first teenager to achieve the feat. Tom Varndell currently holds this achievement. He claimed the first of his three top try-scorer awards with Leicester, aged 20, in 2005/06.
Earl is not the first back row to be in contention for top try scorer. Way back in 1998/99 Neil Back scored the most tries from flanker, whilst Thomas Waldrom achieved this in consecutive seasons in 2014/15 and 2015/16.
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Main image credit: Embed from Getty Images
