Yes, nice flappy arm ball steal he got away with.

What all three?



He was actually our top tackling centre last week. He also missed no tackles. Made no errors.

Top tackling centre eh, let's declare tomorrow a bank holiday.



This is the problem with match stats they can hide a player being wragged about by stronger opponents.

Or OPINIONS can differ wildly to stats?

Can't agree about Gibson he looked very vulnerable defensively he was all over the shop - although playing alongside Donald would not have helped

Kirke is awesome and goes from strength to strength

My Thoughts Exactly As I Mentioned In Another Thread...

Nice to see Ablett get a good rating. He cops for a bit of stick, but put him in the Second Row and I think he does a fine job. Got to feel sorry for him sometimes being pushed into the centres so often.

Both the Wigan tries came down our right hand side including the two disallowed ones - so not sure what Watkins did to deserve Herr Disa's comments?

Did DISA say anything negative about Watkins? Did not DISA say he looked more dangerous?

I only commented on the marks in the YEP based on the fact that Watkins missed 3 tackles and made 3 handling errors. Gibson by contrast missed 0 tackles and made 0 handling errors. Therefore the comment about Watkins been more dangerous to back up them getting the same marks.

Which neither was the fault of gibson!

Who supplied those stats?

I only ask because I've just updated my spreadsheet with the Opta stats found [url=http://www.superleague.co.uk/statistics_player.php?hs1=2009&hp1=3111&hs2=2009&hp2=1836&stat=tries&season=2009here[/url.

They were on the radio after the game on Friday whilst commenting on him learning in the role. Although pretty confident I saw the 3 handling errors, maybe even 4.

Out of interest what are your stats? I would think more accurate. Although if using that site, like you have said on other thread, maybe not.

I was hoping they had been printed in one of the trade papers having been supplied by Opta. Never mind.

FWIW, From the Wigan game:

Kallum Watkins : 3 Missed Tackles, 2 Errors.

Ashley Gibson: 6 Missed Tackles, 1 Error.

Also gibson made 22 carries for 62 metre's.
Whereas watkins made 60 metre's from 15 carries.

Shouldn't that be:

Gibson 62 metres from 13 carries and 22 tackles

Watkins 60 metres from 9 carries and 15 tackles.

Which trade paper were those from?

You see what happens when you don't post the full stats and someone try's to fill them in for you!!

Quite.

Which trade paper carries the opta stats these days. In Lincoln I'm somewhat out of the loop and haven't bothered with a subscription these past 12 years.

The one i "tried" reading

was the league express mate.

Thanks. At least their stats look in line with the online version carried by the SL website.

If they give 40/20's look out for Burrow's double Kirke getting the credit for his. That's what's happened to the online version although it could be a data inputting error somewhere I guess.

They just have"kick's in genral play" but guess what kirke has 1

That one was in addition to his 40/20 though.



My Opta thread is trying to cover this breaking news.

I was at the game due to a quick visit to Blighty for personal reasons. FWIW here are my views on the first live game I've seen for over 5 years...

Re the centres, to me Gibson looked pretty accomplished. To suggest he missed a lot of tackles seems a bit OTT. Wigan's basic tactic down that side was to run Hock straight at Gibson, and whilst he didn't knock him over every time, from what I saw he stopped Hock in his tracks fairly consistently - I'm sure a lot of forwards would have had the same result at best. He also looked positionally OK, and a genuine centre. Watkins made a few errors but looked physically the part. Hopefully he'll come on as he gets more experienced.

Hall looked reasonable. Smith looked good when he actually caught the ball and took it up, but did seem a bit loathe to attack kicks that were short. He does look much too small to be a centre nowadays though.

OK here's a controversial bit. To me Leeds often looked unstructured near the opposition line - Wigan looked more organised - and part of the problem for both centres (perhaps because they're new?) is that Leeds' attacking game didn't bring them into the game consistently well. Was this also due to no specialist hooker?

Of the Leeds forwards, was most impressed by Ablett, who looked much better than I expected and Kirke. However if - huge word I know - Hock could cut out the errors he'd be far and away the best forward on the park.

I'd also add that the scoreline probably flattered Leeds as Wigan made so many bad errors in that first half it was almost laughable.

All in all a good experience. Please don't ask for comparisons to the NRL.

Not that I am disputing you tvoc, but where did the 6 missed tackles come from?

I accept I might have missed one, you cant see everything at the game, but 6?

That super league website you talk of shows him as 0 missed tackles for the season so far. So 6 in one game seems a bit of a difference.

edit.... scratch that, I see the website has changed now. Not so sure I agree on the 6 missed like, but must be something true.

Take back what I said earlier then.

Dare I also suggest that with tackling like that, we need a new centre?

(I know you're not) but don't shoot the messenger folks.

Feel free to query these Opta's stats (who it appears everyone these days like to quote as proof beyond a reasonable doubt) it's an area I'm not particularly interested in.