cpwigan posted:
Your last post is your best Dave re; the reputation and getting penalised.
Your first post re. "Averaging just about one penalty per game for high tackles isn't good and is not mitigated by whatever else he does." is your worst in as long as I can remember Dave.
To the best of my knowledge, Lockers only concedes penalties for high tackles.
Exactly. Not a great thing to be doing on a regular basis.
If we accept your view that he has a tackling problem then I would say you notion it is inexcusable (mitigated)
Inexcusable and mitigated are not the same thing by a long way. The notion is we can forgive him the high tackles because of his other attributes. I am saying we ought not to do that given tackling is a technique that can be honed and perfected. Also because not conceding penalties is crucial in the modern game. In recent games we have seen opposition teams struggle to make headway against us until we give a penalty away.
by whatever else he does is absolutely poppy cock. Martin Offiah was a terrible defender but we excused it because of what he did when we had the ball.
I suggest you watch him save two certain tries by his poor defence in the Wigan v Cas final at Wembley.
He was a poor tackler but he was in a team that could cover that for him. Giving away penalities regularly in a team such as ours at the moment isn't very good. We need to stop tuning the ball over with penalties (as well as other basic mistakes) and I fail to see why Lockers be absolved of responsibilty for cutting out the errors.
Kelvin Skerrett gave penalties away. However, it was part of role to enforce himself on the opposition, we excused it. Terry Newton gave away countless penalties yet our defensive record with him in the team was better and he was a great hooker, we excused it.
Speak for yourself! When it came to crunch games Newton was likely to get wound up and blow it completely as he did with Long. Lost the plot completely. Which is why I have been saying all along no thanks to his return.
As to Skerret and other players for that matter, they may have been penalised for going OTT on occasion but aprt from the game being different in many ways they were not being penalised for a mistake due to poor technque but for doing something deliberate.
Yes it might be considered a tactic to thump the scrum half or whatever but that is a concious decision and you weigh up the pros and cons.
The penalties Lockers is conceeding are not because he is softening the opposition up but because he is making a mess of the tackle. Completely different things.
Lockers is making 30 to 40 tackles, taking the ball up well. He is vital to our team. THAT far outweight the odd penalty.
Bryn Hargreaves never conceded a single penalty when playing for Wigan. Who would you rather have at prop, Bryn or Scott Logan?
That is a very poor argument. Just because Logan gives the odd penalty away does not mean he isn't effective when he does not (give penalties away).
St Helens conceded a very high number of penalties. I believe they actually do so deliberately when they get ahead, taking the view 2 points is better than 6.
If they do I bet they don't do it with head high tackles time after time. Lying on or stuff like that yes but deliberate foul play is too risky but I am not sure what the relevance of this is anyway as Lockers is not deliberately giving penalties away.
I may be right or wrong but my impression is the number of penalties in RL has increased in recent times. I would also like to see whether Lockers conceded more or less penalties early in the game / later, when the best team is on the pitch / substitutes are on, when a player from the opposition is simply making yards / or threatening the tryline. So many variables to consider.
When there are too many variables to consider it usually means they are of negligable effect and you are lookng in the wrong place for the answer.
Lockers has not hurt a single opponent to the best of my knowledge. He is not stiff arming opponents. He is an excellent tackler who is vigorous in his tackling technique, if he was playing in Aus he would conceded far less penalties. Essentially he is taking opponents 1 on 1 and he is attempting to hit above the ball, being light compared to say props he throws himself into the tackle and his arm comes over and around the ball carrier. It looks much much worse than it is.
He is still getting penalised for it. If he wants to perfect this form of tackling e needs to do so. Fletcher didn't hurt anyine when he got done for supposed striking but he copped three matches.
If Lockers doesn't sort it out he will pick up a ban sooner rather than later.
Dave