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southportcdm wrote: ↑Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:36 pm Great effort from Mike last night, he's improved our pack and must have enjoyed playing in the biggest Derby.
I'd be interested to see the metres gained figures for the pack because although they all defended like demons we were really struggling to make yards in the second half. I think we need Havard back if we play them again in the final.

Match stats here.

https://www.superleague.co.uk/match-centre/report/3721

w.thomas wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 8:38 am

southportcdm wrote: ↑Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:36 pm Great effort from Mike last night, he's improved our pack and must have enjoyed playing in the biggest Derby.
I'd be interested to see the metres gained figures for the pack because although they all defended like demons we were really struggling to make yards in the second half. I think we need Havard back if we play them again in the final.

Singleton 9 carries 42m, mago 5 carries 27m, cooper 10 carries 61m, smithies 13 carries 68m, Ellis 10 carries 54m, Byrne 7 carries 30m. Think smithies has really kicked on and is turning into a real good player. Cooper has been quality also. Room for improvement for a few of our props though for sure.

The stats support what we thought on the night, we did not make enough yards as a unit. That we won despite that and the number of errors is encouraging. The back row chipped in though - Faz 89m from 7 and Batman 124m from 14.

widdenoldboy wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 10:36 am

The stats support what we thought on the night, we did not make enough yards as a unit. That we won despite that and the number of errors is encouraging. The back row chipped in though - Faz 89m from 7 and Bateman 124m from 14.

I doubt anyone else's stats are any better against Saints. In general our pack has done OK this year, and it's clear Cooper has improved it.

And, in fairness, Saints stats weren't much better and the overall game stats followed the usual pattern. More metres from Saints front row, more metres from our back row.

As Matty Peet said in his post match, teams are unlikely to win Saints in a territory battle as that's their main strength but there other ways to beat them using the strengths we have that they don't.

In top matches you're unlikely to win all facets of the game. It's all about how many points you can post using the ones that are your strengths and advantages and, as the result shows, we did that to great effect.

Great defence from our boys but those figures reflect a problem we've had for some time against decent packs. I can't help feeling that we'd benefit from someone who can make more metres on a regular basis. I realise that the style of play (e.g. using backs to make hard yards early in the tackle count or spreading the ball wide) affects how many metres the pack makes, but we do struggle to force the ball up the middle at times. I know we've had an excellent season but I'm talking about the difference between getting to the odd Grand Final and winning them regularly which is of course what we'd all like even if it's unrealistic. Saints really pinned us back for a good part of the second half and should have made us pay. If they'd been sharper or our defence not so strong, we'd have been in trouble. Hopefully Havard will be back soon which will help but I still think we have a long-term problem/weakness.

Havard makes good yardage, he is a must for the playoffs.

Thanks to No straw damn us posting a link to the stats, the total number of carries in the game by Wigan was 155 for a total of 993 metres which is an average of 6.41 metres per carry. Saints carried 207 times for a total of 1306 metres which is an average of 6.31 metres per carry. Make of that what you will.

Fizz Bomb wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 2:23 pm Thanks to No straw damn us posting a link to the stats, the total number of carries in the game by Wigan was 155 for a total of 993 metres which is an average of 6.41 metres per carry. Saints carried 207 times for a total of 1306 metres which is an average of 6.31 metres per carry. Make of that what you will.

I think considering there was a large chunk of the game where we were defending tirelessly that those stats are pretty good.

Also Saints were playing with a pretty much full strength pack if I’m not mistaken, so to have us both level pegging there is very good considering the gulf in quality over the past couple of seasons.

I was very impressed with Cooper, he really understands what it means to play in cherry and white, and on the big stage he was brilliant. As were the rest of our forwards.

Flash wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 11:39 am And, in fairness, Saints stats weren't much better and the overall game stats followed the usual pattern. More metres from Saints front row, more metres from our back row.

As Matty Peet said in his post match, teams are unlikely to win Saints in a territory battle as that's their main strength but there other ways to beat them using the strengths we have that they don't.

In top matches you're unlikely to win all facets of the game. It's all about how many points you can post using the ones that are your strengths and advantages and, as the result shows, we did that to great effect.

Whether it was planned or the way things turned out, we absorbed everything they could throw at us and beat them on the counter attack.

I thought Cooper was great, and Byrne had a superb first 30 mins. Smithies' big stats were 44 tackles and 0 penalties!

The one stat no-one has mentioned: we won 30-10. If we'd played like Huddersfield we would have had better average gains and lost 10-6

Bateman’s stats show why he is so important to the team, especially in the big games.