I noticed a bit of arm-grabbing by Faz too. I suppose we rely on him so much. What concerned me the most was that, say what you like about the shortcomings of our forward pack, the truth is we had plenty enough field position to win the game, but our attack was so predictable and disjointed. And if you're coming off second-best in terms of forward power, why persist in trying to barge over from short range, as we spent so much time attempting?

whilst i agree that we have won and will win many matches by not utilising our props as metre makers, i feel there are times and places (one being last night) that the tactics should change a little

i dont think anyone felt that last night was a game to play open / expansive rugby. It was a night for doing the basics well or even dead boring rugby. 5 drives from the forwards and a good kick and apply pressure to the opposition. If we start our 6 in a decent position, then look to play a little then. It should all have been about controlling the ruck in both attack and defence with the pack, and thats what Catalan did. I dont think they played anything out of this world, but played the conditions / what was in front of them far better than Wigan did

I think where the way we use our props falls down is as mentioned when our backs and secondrows don’t make yards…but also when our props are not dominant in defence.

The idea of using the backs and edges for yards is to leave the middles do dominate the contact in the middle to win the arm wrestle.

For periods we did that last night but then failed to execute off the back of it, however for the most part we totally lost that battle which renders the props and the tactic pointless.

Quote ="1872_WiganRLFC"Super League Website. Go to results and then player stats once you've selected the game. www.superleague.co.uk/match-centre/report/3793'" Unless you're Paul vaughan for some reason they keep leaving him off the stats page

Quote ="1872_WiganRLFC"Super League Website. Go to results and then player stats once you've selected the game. www.superleague.co.uk/match-centre/report/3793'" Unless you're Paul vaughan for some reason they keep leaving him off the stats page

Salfords pack isn’t that big but their spine is playing far better than ours , and dishing up some fantastic RL

I can’t bring myself to type Cooper and Singletons stats

Unbelievable

So although we are in need of a second rower. It’s clearly more important we get a powerful forward. Mago’s frustratingly has the size but can’t keep hold of the ball. He still need to be in the match day squad for me as the reward of him making meters out weights the risk of him dropping the ball.

A serious question, why are we obsessed with the metres made by the forwards?
We are top for metres made by the team.
A metre is a metre regardless of whether it's Harry Smith or Liam Byrne.

However we are also top for errors made, which IMO is the major problem at the moment.

I think it's interesting to look at the stats for the packs because that's it's a large part of where platform is made for good field position. But looking at metres made by our pack just tells one side of the story, looking at metres made by our pack vs. the opposition pack tells us how our forwards are doing in attack and defence, i.e., winning the collision. But you need both, because the forwards are working hard to gain metres and limit the metres made by the opposition.

It's not definitive, it's still only one part of the picture because our backs do lots of carries from our half - and of course I agree, our error rate is the statistic that's defining Wigan performances at the moment.

Because metres by the backs do not negate a lack of metres by the forwards. If anything, you could say that if a lot of the work is being done by the backs then the metres per carry from the forwards should be higher as they have to do less work. A simplification but ultimately our forward pack is clearly lacking in power.

Also the forwards make the space for the half-backs - the lack of go forward means the half-backs are under pressure almost at once stifling any attacks. The metres made by the backs are distorted by individual runs which often lead to nothing as well. If things continue as they are amongst the forwards we will struggle when we come up against the better teams.

It's simply comparing their work ethic to players of the same position in other teams and pointing our their sheer laziness and lack of skill in doing the second most important thing in RL after catching the ball.

A few of us have already highlighted how we use our forwards to win the battle defensively. Any comparisons on that?

There were a number of sets from us on Friday when a prop didn't even touch the ball.

It isn't though is it?
What about tackles made, marker tackles, carries etc etc,.

Fans tend to see the spectacular, rather than the workmanlike.

Brian McTigue was one of the best prop forwards I ever saw, but he never ran 100 metres in a game ever.

Coopers stats make me wonder just what we can get out of any prop. Surely that’s tactical if he’s taking in 4 carries for 15 metres? This is a guy who had chewed up ground for fun since he came back from the NRL (and in the NRL). I’m at a loss with it all to be honest. It can’t just be a coincidence that we kill every prop from a statistical POV? We all long for Walmsley, Vaughan or even somebody like Dupree at the minute but I’m starting to wonder if even those guys would play for 30 mins and make less than 60-70 metres here.

I think if our props actually took plenty of carries, made more metres per carry (4 is just embarrassing) it would cause less fatigue for the outside backs and perhaps our attack would be more fluid with less errors.

Dupree is proving to be a great find isn't he. Not sure if he's off contract, but I'd be all over him for 2024.

Looks like he could be, but I've not looked too deep to see if he's signed an extension:

It is not just about metres made, it is more how and where those metres are made and where on the pitch. What is the point of someone like Marshall running the ball back 30 metres say from a kick then the next sets we only gain 10 metres from the forwards, the 30 m gain is of little consequence.

What we need are forwards who can gain metres when it matters and get a quicker play the ball and so quicker distribution from dummy half (areas we really, really struggle in) so the half-backs have some space to work in and can use our backs in a better way other than just as battering rams - we might as well play second rows as centres for all the good they do as anything else.

I do not think it is any co-incidence that when we play Saints, Leeds, Catalan or Warrington that our pack become totally ineffective especially if the ground is a bit heavy. We are so reliant on Field, French and Marshall to get us wins that it is painful.

I get the point about someone like McTigue (and Potter, Case and many others) but someone like that and the ones mentioned where streets ahead of anyone we have now.

As I’ve said before we don’t rely on our props up make meters. It’s definitely tactical.

We use our backs to start sets, secondrows to build sets and generally middles to finish exits sets.

Near the line/in the attacking third we generally use the props to engage the other middles finding certain points on the field to draw in other middles and set up attacking plays.

More often than not if there is an overlap it can be traced to the middle of the field.

In defence they are expected to win the arm wrestle and limit meters by having a higher work rate in this element of the game, I think this is where we have the issue with our middles as they are not managing to dominate/consistently win the wrestle with our current prop rotation.

It may well be tactical but if the backs do not make metres (esp on heavy pitches etc) then we are stuffed as we do seem to have the option to change things up. We were reliant on French to score two individual tries against Salford to get back into the game, but the last ten minutes or so we seemed to up the work rate noticably and get a bit of a roll on and then scored the King try which was by far the best bit of team play the whole game. Wheras for all the pressure at the start of the second half (3 or 4 sets in a row) we never looked like scoring.If plan A doe snot work then plan B seems to fling it to French or Field and hope.

Watching the team so far I cannot see us beating the likes of Leeds/Saint/Warrington or Catalan at the back end of the season in play-off rugby on heavy pitches as we do not have the forward power to get the opponents going backwards both in the fron row and second row and no amount of tactical play will change that with the players we have.

I was going to say, Saints and Wire, fair enough, but Leeds aren't that good. But then, on the other hand, Leeds have beaten Saints and Catalans. But I still don't think they're that good.

Maybe, but then Leeds have turned us over a few times recently and seem to have the beating of Wigan when the game is a slog/forwards battle. Pretty much like Catalans did to us recently as well - close down Field and make it a forward battle and Wigan struggle.

Just to emphasize the work done by the Wigan forwards.
We have four of the top twenty tacklers in Superleague, Smithies, Havard, Powell and Farrell.

Two of those some fans want rid of.

I already posted on another thread how our props compare to others in the league in terms of tackles, tackle efficiency and errors and penalties.

They all pale in comparison.

All-round our props do less work than others in the league - a plain fact.