Totally agree. Let's hope he performs even better when his fitness improves.
Havard, Bullock,Singleton & Kilner could be a decent set of 4 next year.

I think Bullock was just knackered when he got the ball. He should just have drove in and took the tackle.

Mate his tactics rendered us rudderless once again against a Warrington team who’s HB’s were simply appalling. The call of Hardaker to the wing was seen by Stevie Wonder. He brought Harry Smith on too late for his usual quality cameo appearance, luckily on this occasion it won us the game.

JH to hooker?
Tommy STILL our kicker?
Lockers starting?
Bibby?

There’s no credit to be given her jonh. We won yes and I’m glad we won but my god it wasn’t good and Wire should have been 20 up by HT.

I’ve said these past few weeks, our prop department is in a funny position. One one hand it’s currently not good enough, it has a lad on huge money who looks past retirement and two old timers ready to follow. That ties our hands and make it difficult to recruit but on the other hand we have a number of hugely promising young props, we have Bullock who is really improving and now Singleton looks like he could be a shrewd move. It’s been a weak point for a while and still is but it could turn around pretty quickly. There’s a basis of a good front row forming with Partington, Bullock, Havard, Singleton, Byrne, Kilner and Clark all offering promise at points. If only we could manage to get George Burgess either sorted or off the books and replaced.

We struggled for territory again, which seems to be inevitable when Lam goes for his 3 loose forwards approach to team selection. In terms of being dominated territorially it was similar to the Leeds game but there are some crucial differences.

Leeds played an almost flawless game where they made few errors, put us under unrelenting pressure with good last tackles options and wore us down throughout the game. Wire's last tackle options weren't great, they fluffed opportunities and failed to make the most of their dominance. Our defence was good tonight but I don't think it was horrendous against Leeds. Wire let us off the hook at times.

The second half showed what we have to do when we're lacking the hard yards up the middle. We attacked from deep and that seems to be how we threaten teams the most. We bliitzed a big Catalans pack away from home in that way and we beat Leeds in the Super League game in that way too. Soak up the pressure and be willing to go wide to our backs. The conditions meant we weren't trying that in the cup semi final but tonight in the second half we did and it helped us win a close game.

The forced reshuffle meant Lam's most important tactical decision was probably forced on him rather than something he'd do with a fully fit squad. Farrell showed his value to the team as a left sided back rower. He's good throughout games but the longer the game goes on the more dangerous he gets because his fitness levels are outstanding. He's so good at getting late tries and that's because he tends to have more left in the tank late on that his opposite numbers. We've got to keep Faz on that edge rather than wasting him in the middle of the field where he's less effective.

Partington hit on Austin was a beauty and he went missing after that.

Considering it was his first game in 6 months Singleton had a very good debut.

Our attack when Smith and Lockers came on for the last 20 was class, totally changed the game. We started throwing all kinds of shapes at wire and waited for them to crack.

Letting Warrington march down the field ever set and offload 34 times is a BIG worry. Luckily they have two of the most overrated half backs in super league who couldn’t create anything.

We need to improve.

Karl Fitzpatrick; “We played Wigan four times in 2019 and beat them three times and it was very disappointing that we didn’t beat them four times. I expect us to complete a clean sweep against them this year with our recruitment and the quality of our squad.”

That’s the reason we won there - the HB’s. If they’re on form and playing like they can, we lose. Probably quite comfortably too. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of that hit on Austin from Oli. It took him out the game completely at a time when Wire were getting stronger. Widdop then made inexcusable errors trying to do too much and Wire just collapsed completely.

Joe did big minutes against Leeds hence he probably got fatigued tonight. At lease he has got some punch.

When Faz scored was Austin on the deck holding his leg, neck, arm or foot? One thing was sure he wasn't making a tackle. Partington's tackle knocked the stuffing out of him.

Where was that Wolf tonight?

Sack Terry, Baz and Phil and get Brown in with Wilkin.

What a good idea!
Funnily enough, a friend texted me during the game and said that Brown should replace O’Connor.
We also agree that Wilkin is excellent.

I don’t think Clarke’s too bad though. At least he speaks English.

Somebody said upthread, was the game that good? Well I've been away, and had the Wigan game and Raiders/Roosters recorded, and I must admit, I watched the Raiders first; I'd been really looking forward to seeing GW against the Roosters, and he and his team didn't disappoint! Then watching the Wigan game, I thought it was a well above-average SL encounter. Warrington should have won, Ratchford was excellent as usual, but they didn't make the most of their chances. I was impressed with Singleton too, a very good effort, and hopefully he will only improve further. Bullock too put in a good shift. But again, the lack of game plan, still poor last tackles options, and Smith surely introduced late. Luckily today, not too late. That pin-point kick he landed in the in-goal by the corner flag; all Bibby had to do was make the tackle, and he couldn't do it, and Charnley came away with the ball; it deserved better. Faz a machine as usual, let's keep him in his proper position.

Anyone got the stats for Brad Singleton last night?

Singleton played like Coley used to, hard work, direct and always wanted the ball,just a no nonsense approach. It's a shame we can't lose Clubb as well as Flower at the end of this season, we really don't need either. Burgess is another matter, we all hope he gets fit and probably most important for him is some confidence in his own body, to really be the explosive player he's known for.

Another thing about last night. The Hardaker break. I think one of the correct decisions Lam has made is putting him at centre. He is a strong lad who tackles well (although doesn't give Manfredi much ball) but 2 or 3 years ago Zak was away and gone with that break and not for catching.

not many caught him then, Charnley is rapid and would have caught Hardaker all day long, French didnt get to him and Bibby looked like he was running in mud

Bibby is really frustrating. I honestly think there is a good player their and he showed it for Salford. Last night he had some shockers. Stick him back to centre and we’ll get a better output. He really needs to learn not to shoot the line when defending. Budge was murder for that at one point, that trait seems to have been coached out of him.

Metres from our forwards:
1. Farrell - 141m (17 carries)
2. Partington - 125m (13 carries)
3. Bullock - 112m (12 carries)
4. Singleton - 94m (13 carries)

Top metres from our outside backs:
1. Manfredi - 178m (18 carries)
2. Hardaker - 176m (19 carries)
3. French - 128m (13 carries)
4. Isa - 111m (13 carries)

Top tacklers:
1. Farrell - 55
2. Powell - 52
3. Partington - 45
4. Smithies - 37
5. Hastings - 36
(26 tackles from Singleton, which is decent)

Marker tackles
1. Farrell - 18
=2. Partington - 10
=2. Powell - 10
=2. Bullock - 10
5. Smithies - 8

Tackle busts:
1. Hardaker - 8
=2. French - 6
=2. Manfredi - 6
=4. Farrell - 5
=4. Hastings - 5

It's rare that all our props post over 90 metres in a single game. Really good efforts from Partington, Singleton and Bullock. You wouldn't have thought Singleton was playing his first game for months given how he got stuck in. 94m is more than all of our props average except for Havard.

Farrell is also a machine. That work rate to be our top metre making forward, the games joint top tackler, putting in the most repeat efforts in defence and being the one to come up with the match winning play shows what a special player he is. I think a lot of people still don't realise how good he is.

The Warrington stats are crackers for a losing team. There are very few players who went under 100m for them, so it’s a real sign of just how well we defended and how much guts the side showed to get out of that with a win.

I think Singleton is more like Flower. Coley used to make a lot of ground after contact and was on the pitch for longer spells where Singleton is more aggressive but isn’t a big meter maker, tries to win the collision and get a quick play of the ball. Even last night after getting a lot of praise on here his meters made where less than Bullock and Partington in both total and average carry. That’s obviously not the be all and end all but it shows where he will fit in, he’s probably going to be fighting out to make the 17 rather than being a regular imo. Although it was a really promising start considering he’s not played for months.

Hastings has gone to number 9 in every game when Leuluai or Powell has gone off and Smith has been introduced.

As far as I am concerned, the time has come for Leuluai to be on the subs bench as substitution cover for the half backs and hooker and our starting halfbacks should be Hastings at Stand Off with Smith at Scrum Half. The more game time that Smith plays will be better for the future as he will get more experience than what is is getting at present by only coming on late in a game.

The cup tie against Leeds started to change when Smith with his kicking game was introduced, but by then, we had already lost!

Wigan should show the same confidence in Harry Smith as Castleford did with Jake Truman and Leeds did a few seasons ago with Rob Burrow.

It’ll be about balance and getting the right pair on the field at the same time. I think from what I’ve seen so far this season our four should be Havard, Partington, Bullock and Singleton and I’d want to split them so you have your two biggest metre makers separate and then Partington and Singleton on at different times so you’ve got that aggression. If Havard is back next week, I’d put him in the bench with Singleton and start Partington and Bullock again. I would then challenge Burgess, Byrne, Flower, Clubb, Clark and Kilner to show they can break that group of four up when they get a chance. To say we have so many props, it’s weird to think that we’ve not really had that competition for places. It’s always seemed like due to one thing or another, we’ve had at most 4 or 5 of them available.

Or Wigan did with Sam Tomkins and George William's etc.

Yeah but George was crap.



I agree on the halves, but I do like how we can turn the game by injecting Smith into the attack.