Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

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EagleEyePie
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Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by EagleEyePie »

Ask our fans where our weakness is and I'm sure pretty much everyone will say it's down the middle, so I thought I'd take a look at the stats and see whether they might provide a different perspective. (Spoiler: they didn't). Apologies in advance for going all Phil Clarke.

First up, lets look at the 30 'middles' who average the most metres per game in Super League, and which team they play for.

1 - Walmsley - 132m - Saints
2 - Cooper - 120m - Warrington
3 - Hill - 116m - Warrington
4 - Jones - 110m - Huddersfield
5 - Tetevano - 108m - Leeds
6 - Garcia - 102m - Catalans
7 - Taylor - 98m - Hull FC
8 - Amor - 98m - Saints
9 - Yates - 98m - Huddersfield
10 - Philbin - 97m - Warrington
11 - Sidlow - 96m - Leigh
12 - Lawrence - 95m - Huddersfield
13 - Oledzki - 94m - Leeds
14 - Massey - 93m - Castleford
15 - Cator - 90m - Hull FC
16 - Mulhern - 88m - Warrington
17 - LMS - 88m - Saints
18 - Dudson - 87m - Catalans
19 - Satae - 86m - Hull FC
20 - Bousquet - 85m - Catalans
21 - Arona - 85m - Wakefield
22 - Fifita - 84m - Wakefield
23 - Paasi - 83m - Saints
24 - Westerman - 81m - Wakefield
25 - Sao - 81m - Hull FC
26 - Kasiano - 81m - Catalans
27 - Smith - 79m - Castleford
28 - Matagi - 77m - Castleford
## - Lees - 76m - Saints (only played 2 games)
29 - Prior - 75m - Leeds
30 - Millington - 75m - Castleford

So among the top 30 metre making middles:
Saints = 4 (5 if you include Lees)
Warrington = 4
Catalan = 4
Hull FC = 4
Castleford = 4
Leeds = 3
Huddersfield = 3
Wakefield = 3
Leigh = 1

The 3 teams that don't have anyone inside the top 30 (Hull KR, Salford and Wigan) come next in the rankings:
31 - Lawler - 74m - Hull KR
32 - Ikahihifo - 73m - Salford
33 - Havard - 73m - Wigan

Early in a season a couple of decent games can skew the figures, so here's another way of looking at it. For a middle a good number of metres to make in a game would be around 80m. So which teams have the most consistent middles? (Brackets = games making 80m+/total games played this year)

Castleford - Massey (5/7), Smith (3/6)
Catalans - Bousquet (8/8), Garcia (5/8), Kasiano (5/7), Dudson (4/6)
Huddersfield - Jones (5/8), Yates (5/7), Lawrence (4/7)
Hull FC - Cator (6/8), Satae (5/8), Taylor (4/4), Sao (4/7)
Hull KR - Lawler (4/8)
Leeds - Oledzki (6/8), Tetevano (4/4), Prior (4/8)
Leigh - Sidlow (3/4), Bell (3)
Saints - Walmsley (8/8), Amor (7/8), LMS (4/8), Paasi (4/7)
Salford - Ikahihifo (3/8)
Wakefield - Arona (5/8), Fifita (4/8), Westerman (3/8)
Warrington - Hill (7/8), Cooper (6/7), Philbin (6/8), Mulhern (5/7)
Wigan - Havard (3/8)

It's pretty much the same pattern. 3 teams are represented by only 1 player each. This also shows the consistency of players like Walmsley, Amor, Bousquet, Tetevano, Taylor, Hill, Cooper.

But of course rugby league is a team game, and generally the pattern seems to be that teams will have a minimum of 2 starting props, 2 props on the bench and a 13 as their 'middles' during a game, a set of 5 middles. So here's another way to rank them.

Take the 5 highest metre making middles per team and find their average metres made per game:

1. Warrington - 95.5m
2. Saints - 95.2m
3. Huddersfield - 88.2m
4. Catalans - 82.1m
5. Hull FC - 81.8m
6. Castleford - 78.7m
7. Leeds - 74m
8. Leigh - 72.3m
9. Wakefield - 66.6m
10. Salford - 59.8m
11. Hull KR - 59.1m
12. Wigan - 56.5m (62.1m with Smithies as a middle)

So when you work it out like this, Wigan's middles make the fewest metres per game of any club in Super League. Those rankings don't seem to be too far removed from what you'd expect and you can probably pinpoint why some teams might be higher than their league position would suggest. It also proves fairly convincingly that our middles are not contributing the metres you'd expect and perhaps looks a bit worrying considering we've yet to play teams 1,2 & 3 on that list, just got battered by 4 and lost against 5 in the cup.

I've not counted Smithies as a middle because most of his big metres have come while playing at second row this year. He averages around 77m per game which, if he was playing 13 more often, would be the best of our middles.

Once we get Farrell and maybe Isa back in the pack it does strengthen the back row. Faz and Bateman average over 100m per game and Isa makes good metres too. It should get the back row back to where it's been over the last few years but it still doesn't provide much help down the middle.
widdenoldboy
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by widdenoldboy »

Really good post.

I suppose some might say "we don't play that way" so are there figures for speed of PTB?

Moreover, most of our forwards are decent but its the balance that is wrong, we have too many forwards on the small side and we have a small backline - I can't fault their effort but we are always on the back foot.
morley pie eater
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by morley pie eater »

Great post, EEP. A lot of work gone into it.

Good to see someone answering a question with hard facts rather than just their opinion. I've certainly been a doubter of all the claims that we have a problem making ground up the middle, but you've produced a very convincing argument here.
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Exiled Wiganer
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by Exiled Wiganer »

That is a superb post. It speaks for itself, and confirms what we see with our own eyes. What amazes me is how can Lam and co look at our inability to make any ground and do nothing about it. Can anyone come up with any possible explanation?
fozzieskem
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by fozzieskem »

Exiled Wiganer wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:35 am That is a superb post. It speaks for itself, and confirms what we see with our own eyes. What amazes me is how can Lam and co look at our inability to make any ground and do nothing about it. Can anyone come up with any possible explanation?
Stats can tell any story they want to though if you look at them for a point of view,that said most have said it here Wigan’s inability to make any distance must be a worry,assuming they are looking at those stats of course.

Sometimes there are 2 sides to a story and this is a classic case of that,we fans can see the issue so as you rightly say can’t the management team see it also?

As for explanation of why I can not offer one only to say the menegement need to take a long look at themselves to see if they’re the problem and I suspect if they’re honest they make not like the conclusion they come to
pedro
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by pedro »

weve been like that for years but had backs making the yards when needed, Budgie, Manfredi, Gelling, Sarge and Gilly. Manfredi is just back and Bibby did ok at this but French and Hanley just dont cut the mustard doing it. We are really missing out injured backs to make up the hard yards for us.
Last edited by pedro on Mon Jun 07, 2021 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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EagleEyePie
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by EagleEyePie »

Unfortunately Widden the Super League don't seem to collect stats for speed of play the ball. It's a shame because that might provide an insight into how effective quick play the balls are in modern games.

One thing that would support the 'we just don't play that way' theory is the average number of carries per team from those top 5 middles.

1. Saints - 12.76
2. Warrington - 11.88
3. Hull FC - 10.96
4. Huddersfield - 10.8
5. Catalans - 10.6
6. Castleford - 10.54
7. Leigh - 10.06
8. Leeds - 9.84
9. Wakefield - 9.42
10. Hull KR - 8.86
11. Wigan - 8.62
12. Salford - 8.14

That's fairly consistent with the list of metres per game. You might think that's obvious - the teams who make the most carries down the middle would also make the most metres, and those less dominant teams will have less possession so make fewer carries overall.

The most compelling argument for 'we don't play that way' comes when you take the amount of metres made by the middles in comparison to the number of metres made overall.

If you find the average number of metres per game and divide it by 17 you'd get the average number of metres per player, per game. If a team makes a lot of metres through other means then the average metres per game per player would be higher than the average metres per game per middle (stay with me here).

So this is the teams ranked by metre making middles compared to metre making overall.

1. Saints - 104.5%
2. Huddersfield - 102.2%
3. Leigh - 100.4%
4. Hull FC - 99.9%
5. Warrington - 96.4%
6. Leeds - 95.9%
7. Wakefield - 93%
8. Catalans - 90.9%
9. Castleford - 89%
10. Salford - 77.8%
11. Hull KR - 73.9%
12. Wigan - 65.39%

This shows quite clearly that Wigan are making metres but other areas are contributing more. Not a surprise when we have the 1st and 4th best metre making forwards (Faz and Bateman).

However, Salford and Hull KR also rank near the bottom of the list. So do we just play a similar style to those 2 teams? Is it deliberate to reduce the metres made by the props (as it seemed to be under Wane) or is it forced due to a weakness in that area?

When you look at stats there are always anomalies. The top forward in terms of metres per carry so far this year is....Tony Clubb!

Average metres per carry seems to be a reasonable indicator of how well a team is doing. Wire, Wigan and Catalans are the top 3 for that stat in Super League but Saints only rank 7th.

You can probably shape these stats to support what you want but I think it does raise a few questions.

1. If we deliberately have our middles making fewer carries, why do we do it?
2. If it's a tactic is it actually working this year? We've won a lot, but lost against teams with big metre making middles
3. Why don't we play in a similar way to the likes of Saints, Wire, Catalans? Is it because the middles aren't good enough or because we see our strength in other areas?
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Firestarter
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by Firestarter »

Like everyone has stated already, this is a great post and although im no stat lover, it does make you think…… ive always though our forwards seem to run at the defender unlike most other SL forwards…… we also dont seem to step before we hit the line, like Ben Flower used to do……I also think we are very slow( ball playing) at acting half…… im not having a dig at powell coz he adds different things but hes definitely not the best at passing and switching…….we always seem to make more forward yardage as the season gets down to the nitty gritty…..maybe this is fitness or just tactical change, im not sure……. I personally think we play better when we link( both halves, and fullback one side)early in our own half and get the defence on the back foot…… we have always been one of the fastest teams threequarter and backrow wise……. One thing that has always confused me is why we dont have big threequarters with our style of play
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Wigan_forever1985
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by Wigan_forever1985 »

Brilliant set of stats but as others have said theres more to stats than the facts on a sheet

one thing for me which really damages the effects of our middles is potb. Again i dont want to sound like im bagging on Sam Powell but you cant ignore that he is the slowest hooker in the entire league (i cant think of a slower hooker)

One of the things you will see a lot of the nippier hookers do is get the interest of the first defender they will take a couple of steps forward to the left or right to clear the square markers and what they are looking for is to engage the first defender they will then tip off to an at speed middle and then the first defenders have to change their stance to effect a tackle. Roby is very good at this.

Powell cant scoot - not even a half scoot he looks like he's wearing concrete in his boots so we always pass but even his passing is very slow so youre just always opn the back foot. The only time we get some speed around our ruck is when the backs come in to scoot and then we start making some progress.

Powell just isnt enough of a threat from Dummy half teams dont have to cover him in the same way they do other hookers
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Mike
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Re: Weak middles - Do the stats back it up?

Post by Mike »

pedro wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:05 am weve been like that for yhears but had backs making the yards when needed, Budgie, Manfredi, Gelling, Sarge and Gilly. Manfredi is just back and Bibby did ok at this but French and Hanley just dont cut the mustard doing it. We are really missing out injured backs to make up the hard yards for us.
It would be interesting to see the number of average yards made by the back 3 or 5 over the last 2-3 years and compare with this season. I'd say our yardage probably dropped significantly when Marshall got injured, because we'd gradually whittled down the players capable of making early tackle yardage to just him in the end, and he was picking up all the slack last season I thought.

In our current style, the back three making yardage is even more important than the forwards. They get the set rolling forwards and make it way easier for the pack to run at a retreating line. Its just not been happening recently.
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