Are we just a bang average side with a couple of excellent players ? For me we have Field and French then the rest are bang average. Our props couldn't burst through a paper bag, our hooker is slow at the play of the ball, predictable and gets the minutes he does because he's a good Wigan lad, our 6 & 7 are underwhelming and average at best.

With regards Powell, I havent ever rated him, and found it very interesting that Micky Mac barely got 40 mins a game with powell replacing him, yet seems to have managed almost a full 80 minutes every week since he moved to Catalan.

I'd be interested to look back at stats on that. Wouldn't expect Wane to play someone ahead of MM like that without reason such as injury

Quote ="muttywhitedog"With regards Powell, I havent ever rated him, and found it very interesting that Micky Mac barely got 40 mins a game with powell replacing him, yet seems to have managed almost a full 80 minutes every week since he moved to Catalan.'" Powell played well as the stats show. https://www.superleague.co.uk/match-centre/report/3801

Quote ="muttywhitedog"With regards Powell, I havent ever rated him, and found it very interesting that Micky Mac barely got 40 mins a game with powell replacing him, yet seems to have managed almost a full 80 minutes every week since he moved to Catalan.'" Powell played well as the stats show. https://www.superleague.co.uk/match-centre/report/3801

Bizarre that you choose to post this after a match where 6 players posted 100+ metres and managed to "win ugly", something only a week ago people were claiming we couldn't do.

I've heard of kneejerk reactions but this takes it to a whole new level.

Depends what the yard stick is. We’re a very good side at Superleague level, albeit I don’t think we’re in the best form. Field and French are very good players but so are Farrell, Marshall, Smithies etc. I would actually say Field (last 2 games) and French (all season)have been off their best. Maybe that’s why we’ve not been at our best either but it can’t just be a 2 man show or else you don’t win a game.

Even though he got 2 try’s last night, I thought French continued a slow start to the season. I don’t know if the big contract and the carrot of an NRL move being removed, has seen a subconscious switch off but he’s not been involved in a lot of games and we can’t blame that on being on the wing, as he was dynamite last season. Maybe it’s simply proof that for him to get the space he needs to have the big impacts, the team needs to play better and that would then say we’re not just an average side, with 2 excellent players or he wouldn’t have been able to run riot last season either.

We’re a big, aggressive forward shy of having a sniff at all the trophies this season IMO. If we can do the shuffling around to bring in that type of player is another matter.

Good post

I'm not disagreeing with you on this, but it feels we've been saying the same thing for a long time. I can't help but feel that, on the recruitment front, the club just get it wrong more times than they get it right - especially when it comes to forwards.

Cooper was supposed to be the missing link & whilst he's improved us, its negated by the loss of Bateman. One step forward & then one step back.

I would add a top 6 and a second row forward. Sadly, we cannot solve all three problems this season but I agree we need to improve our go forward as a priority.

My recollection is that MM used to sart, get brought off around the 20 minute mark and return later in the game, either for the last 20 or after half time, only to be spelled again. I recall watching him in 2018 doing full games for Catalan and thinking that why on earth was he being spelled so often the year before. The answer to me became clear - he was let go so Powell could play more as he was never going to be a 7.

I've tried searching for minutes played for the 2017 season, but no site I can find drills down that far.

Warrington signed a great one who isn't just a tackling merchant and has made more yardage than Havard and Cooper put together.

[code
Player Tackles Meters
Paul Vaughan 131 840
Ethan Havard 150 454
Mike Cooper 103 323
Brad Singleton 80 246 *played 1 game less
[/code

How many carries?

EDIT: I looked at this for Vaughan and Havard.

Vaughan 100 carries, so 8.4 average
Havard 63 carries, so 7.2 average

Further edit:

Cooper 44 carries, so 7.3 average

I think it was common knowledge Vaughan was a fantastic forward during his time in the NRL but he can be trouble off the field. Wire have taken the gamble and it’s paying off handsomely so far. We’ll see how it continues to play out over the next few months/years, as he’s settled in fully and the good drinking weather of the summer comes round. There is far less scrutiny on the players here, so he’ll probably be fine.

I'm not bothering to look at the minute, but how is the rest of the props going for Warrington?

We've made more yards per carry as a team than they have, but we've also made 22 more errors than they have and have the joint worst error rate in the comp along with Cas. We average 13.2 errors a game to Wire's 8.8. They've made almost 170 more carries than we have.

If we can keep hold of the ball we'll head in the right direction.

We need to improve a hell of a lot to be competitive at Warrington, that's for sure.

It doesn't really make for pretty reading tbh.

Basically our props get through at least 10% less work (Carries+Tackles) than Wire's, as an average. Our props have also made the same amount of errors despite 32% less carries with the ball. Below is just props from both teams.

[codeTeam Tackles TK% Carries Metres Avg. Gain Errors Penalties
Warrington 492 96% 313 2,365 7.6 9 7
Wigan 518 92% 213 1,595 7.5 9 9[/code

They also have McGuire and Dudson to come into their pack.

Looking more into it, basically our backrow and centres pick up all of the slack from our props. Wingers' workrate is fairly equal.

These stats are very predictable though. Every season I think "surely Wigan will throw some cap at a top class prop" and every season it's a relief they don't.

Some of the recruitment decisions at Wigan defy belief sometimes IMO - I'd be so annoyed as a Wigan fan as it is so obvious.

We did that in 2020 but it didn't work out.
We did that in 2022 but it didn't work out.
We've done that in 2023 with the same set as 2022, time will tell.

As JonH says time and time again though, we don't use our props in the traditional sense so their stats won't necessarily match those of other sides. We have made more average yards per carry as a team than Warrington have. If we can cut out the errors and have more ball then we'll see all of our go forward stats improve. "Bang average" is the knee jerk reaction of all knee jerk reactions.

An average of 13 errors a game (let's say each side has 40 sets) means we are down to 27 with the ball. Then we give away an average of 5.5 penalties. We are starving ourselves of the ball.

Saying that though - only Warrington have scored more tries (27 to 25) however we have the lowest number of carries in the comp, so we aren't doing too bad when we learn to stick hold of the ball.

Like I said above, knee jerk reaction.

Did you? Who were these top class props you signed in 2020 and 2022? I'm assuming you are not saying Mago and Ellis are top class props - they were punts. Cooper is a decent, ageing, fairly small prop. Better than what you had but not someone I'd put in the top class bracket. It looked to me like you recycled some average props for some slightly less average props.

Edit: I guess it's George Burgess for 2020 which is a fair point but there was a fair bit of concern over his condition.

I think Wigan tried to pinch a couple of top props with Ellis/Mago last season, going with the Field/French model of signing players on the fringes of NRL first teams, who they believe have talent but for whatever reason aren’t getting regular games. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s worked. Makes no mistake, they were fringe NRL/reserve grade props but there had to be a reason for that and I think we’ve seen it here.

It’s different with Field/French and backs in general. The NRL want backs to be 6ft plus and 15 stones or more and you don’t need to be that over here. They’ve been exceptional signings and I think there’s more where they came from. It looks a tougher task to nab a cheap forward and I think we’ll have to move away from that strategy, certainly in terms of every NRL forward signing we make. You can get guys like Sironen, Matautia, Vaughan etc, who do play first grade on a regular basis and presumably don’t cost the earth. A mixture of more established forwards and fringe first teamers would feel a better balance.

Exactly, and then bringing in Cooper.

That's not true tho. I've bit my lip to the oracle that is JonH, but it's absolute BS.

We talk about carrying on the "Wane style". Well anyone who watched the world cup will have seen our props running riot. Burgess was probably the best front rower of the tournament. Has Wane changed his style, or did he finally have access to proper front rowers who can do both? Whichever of these two is true it doesn't paint a pretty picture. 1. We're either carrying on with an old style, or 2. Our recruitment isn't good enough.

For me it's clearly option 2. Truthfully ask yourself this - Are we saying that if Wigan had a JWH, Burgess or Walmsley, we'd be telling them to not make yards and hit the ground early?

Bitter pill to swallow as a fan, but our recruitment in the forwards isn't good enough. I can probably name you 10 failures Vs not many successes on the recruitment front. How can it be that hard? Other teams seem to find gems each year, we get Mago, Singleton, Mitch f-ing Clarke or a new deal for Clubb.

It probably is option 2 and if we had JWH, Burgess or Walmsley we may change our style. We don't have those players so we haven't changed our style. Play to your strengths as they say.

Last week, Toby King had the most carries, followed by Marshall, followed by Faz. Pretty obvious from that how we played the game.

Oh 100% play to your strengths & it has worked/been successful.

You've touched on the real problem however and it's the long term strategy. It swaps from being playing to your strengths, to being a conscious effort not to change things. A perfect example would be to replace Singo at the end of the season. If we don't, then it's a style preference instead of making do with what we've got.

FWIW, a lot of teams line up like us. Saints with Makinson Percival look for those early carries. Penrith with To'o do the same + Liam Martin makes big yards. They've also got props that make big yards too - Walmsley being the best in SL and Fisher-Harris probably being the prominent prop in the game.

We need to improve our front row go forward. Making excuses for Singleton being cr@p isn't helping us.