I saw this post on "What would Bevan Say" and thought I would share on here. The stat is quite stark. Something has clearly changed, even Powell alludes to it. Interested to hear views on why we think this has happened.

+/- of Warrington Wolves fourteen games in 2023.
[uFirst seven games..[/u
Scored 232 (Av 33.14)
Conceded 82 (Av 11.72)

[uLast seven games..[/u
Scored 113 (Av 16.14)
Conceded 131 (Av 19)

WWBS ask what has made the difference?
Mikaela leaving for OZ?
Too many new contracts signed?
The way the games have fallen?
Moved away from the basics?
All of the above or something else?

suspensions
overworking vaughan
and teams having seen us and worked out how to nullify us.

I'd definitely go with other teams working us out as the 2022 version thankfully offered no clue as to how we'd start. Whilst I'm not sure about overworking Vaughan, we are certainly over reliant on Williams for any creativity out of the back

in the context of our best ever start to a super league season....
there may be an element of us keeping our powder dry for more important games later in the season....the stand out result in the second half being the cc win in Catalans....that points to us still being able to turn it on when it really matters.
Teams will have worked us out to an extent, our pack being very different this season from last...so teams are learning how we play this year..
Suspensions will have an impact, especially to pivot players and key forwards.
Show me 1 Warrington fan who would say they wouldn't take where we are in the league now, after the games played, at the start of the season.

The second seven include Catalans away twice alongside games against St Helens and Wigan.

Here’s a stat.
McGuire first 7 games out team playing well
Comes back next 7 team plays rank.

None of your options imo.

Fatigue and multiple prop suspensions.

None of your options imo.

Fatigue and multiple prop suspensions.

I think the league game away at Catalan was when things started to get a bit loose.
Dont get me wrong it was a good victory especially considering we were down to 12 men.
The players and fans were right to celebrate that win but it looked like we had won the grand final.
Let's not forget that the dragons were missing Pearce, Tomkins and McIllorum and others.
I think we fell in love with ourselves a bit in the South of France and we have gone away from what was working previous to that.

I recall in the first 7 or so games our middle unit were scoring a couple of tries a game. Mikeale, Vaughan and Harrison scoring quite often.
That was a bit of an indicator that we were playing a power game.

That has dropped off quite a bit as we look like we are trying to shift the ball earlier in the set.

I also think teams have figured us out a bit. We struggle with teams that are prepared to offload the ball. Against Hull KR recently we couldn't cope with them until we started to wrap the ball up.

Still 2 points clear at the top isn't bad.

I thought that we would miss Mikaele more than we thought but I couldn’t quite work out why. Friend of mine pointed out that not only was Mikaele playing well but his runs were arcing and tended to bump a few defenders off/change direction and mangle 3/4 defenders out of shape leaving us to take advantage. He also complemented Vaughans straight running style perfectly. Now we are a team of forwards with one direct style. It’s not all down to this but I think it’s playing a large part.

Not sure Mikaeles absence is the reason why we’ve stopped being adventurous in attack in our own twenty (Leigh try first minute amongst a few others) - baffled as to why we don’t seem to be trying this stuff anymore - seems they have lost confidence.

I think the mikaele runs are a massive loss, I said this last year bullock is a big man, but he's not a BIIIIGGG man, and he's a straight up and down runner

Warrington need a big game and good result today or DP is gonna come under massive pressure.

Lesser squads/teams like Leigh and Salford are being coached better than this Warrington team.

I’m fact Leigh feature a lot of ex Warrington players DP couldn’t get a tune out of yet they seem to be playing very well at Leigh.

All eyes on DP!

Powell is under pressure now. Defence reverted back to type. Attack awful and his team selections.. Well the less said about that the better.

Strange - but not unexpected - how fans were in the main waxing lyrical about our start to the season, and now fans are calling for the heads of players, coaches and CEO.
(I remember saying something similar last year and was suprised at the reaction it provoked - history to repeat itself?)

I wonder how many have been in both camps?

Would I want to be a top rl player nowadays?
Debatable.
From a sports point of view - yes.
From all the crap that appears on social media and to a lesser extent in the mainstream media - no.

These days the players need a teflon coat to ignore all the 'talk' and just concentrate on the day job.
We do sometimes forget though that many of these lads are young and impressionable. Keeping off social media would be one of my first pieces of advice I'd give a young sportsperson.

Yes we help to pay their wages, but as in all jobs, we all have good and bad days.
Do the vast majority of the players go out with a 'don't care' attitude? Certainly not. But they are human after all.

I really do find a lot of the 'slagging off' distasteful