Lies, damned lies, and... (part 23. Approximately)

Interesting news article about the IRB's new plan for women's rugby (a copy of the plan would be nice), but in the meanwhile....

IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “These are exciting times for Rugby around the world. We have witnessed an 18% growth in participation across the sport since Rugby World Cup 2007"

How on earth does he know? Given the very loose link between many countries player registration data and reality (most especially England's hilarious claims) how can he possibly make such a statement? And with such laser-like accuracy? Not "about 20%", not "more than 15%" - exactly 18% (unless maybe someone said it was about a sixth?).

But also, given the fact that England's wildly inflated totals not only make up a sizeable proportion of the world's alleged rugby player totals, but have apparently been falling (see various panicked initiatives over the past five years or more, many reported on here), how on earth can player numbers be going up this much, if at all?

Wouldn't it be great if someone at the IRB (and RFU) could stop inventing statistics...