Wigan squad for Warrington / Tonight's Match v Warrington

[Charriots Offiah]

Both Ellis & Byrne were bossed in the opening 20 mins and indeed our pack was to a degree for that opening stint when we had shorrocks at 2nd row its a lighter pack than with wire having Vaughn, dudson, Harrison & Philbin etc in theirs. 2nd 20 we seemed even - 2nd half we dominated them! Note that 2nd spell Byrne was a lot better…

Hats off to Mago & KPP last night - they were awesome when they came on.

The Wire pack can’t continue with that intensity for 80 minutes it was inevitable that their line speed would slow. Young pack against an old pack.

[morley pie eater]

Shorrocks ran 12m from 6 carries…

Is that a typo on the Super League site?

Regardless of defensive abilities or when he gets his hands on the ball that isn’t good enough is it?

Missed 11 tackles too.

Should move to the bench and start Pearce Paul

Shorrocks has never been best suited to second row because he's smaller than most outside backs. There's no size advantage of speed/agility advantage when he makes carries so he struggles to make ground. When he plays decent minutes down the middle he makes more metres because he can evade tackles easier and run at gaps rather than into players.

He's at second row because he's so good for the team defensively. It's a trade-off at the moment because of the players we have missing. Nsemba is great going forward but inexperienced defensively. If we were chasing the game Nsemba would have got more minutes. It turned out things were going well with Shorrocks out wide so Matt Peet only gave Nsemba a short stint.

I wouldn't pay any attention at all to the missed tackle count. He allegedly missed 8 tackles last week against Wakefield but I watched it again keeping an eye on that and he missed 2. The way Opta calculate missed tackles is if you make contact with a defender but don't complete a tackle that's counted as a missed tackle. It counts all the times Shorrocks places a hand on a ball carrier and then voluntarily drops off to get back into the defensive line, which he does a lot.

If he was actually missing the number of tackles the stats say he was, he would have been hauled off in the same way Byrne was after his poor start to the game. McIlorum is another player who falls foul of how Opta count missed tackles, because he rushes up and often reaches out to force players to change direction away from danger. The stats say it's a missed tackle, the reality is it's good defence, which is why everyone praises his defence despite him always being very high on Opta's missed tackle stats.

When it comes to Shorrocks at second row, it was still worth it last night because it allowed Pearce-Paul to play at prop where he was brilliant. If we moved KPP back to the edge we wouldn't have been as effective down the middle. With our props generally being a bit poor it worked out well to have someone like KPP as a prop.

As soon as Havard and Isa return I doubt Shorrocks will stay at second row. He's most valuable at 13 (he was one of few good players against Wakefield). Long term I don't think he'll be at Wigan too much longer because he's really an out and out 13 and with Smithies our first choice and O'Neill an option as that second hooker at 13 which a lot of teams do there may be even fewer opportunities for him next year. For now he's been incredibly valuable this season.

[catman]

Good performance last night.
Warrington set off at hundred miles per hour and scored the early try. Wigan didn’t panic and stuck to their game plan. Warrington’s big pack couldn’t keep up their early pace and we scored two good first half tries. Second half was more of the same we controlled the ruck, didn’t make many handling errors and played some decent football.
Plus signs were Wigan’s discipline when things got rough in the second half, KPP had a good comeback game he looked fit and strong and also I thought Jai Field had a good game getting much more involved than in previous weeks.
We need to keep this up in the next few weeks we need consistency, to be able to stick to our plan and like last night not go to pieces when things don’t go right.

[widdenoldboy]

Must admit I’ve always wanted Byrne to succeed but it doesn’t seem to be happening hope I’m wrong but ?

Byrne has a problem with standing up in the tackle, he needs to change his body angle.

He doesn't use his weight and sometimes looks a little lazy. He seems hesitant to put his body into tackles and carries. Their first try came off him flapping around with his arms way too much when he should have been putting the man down. He got carried over for a goal line drop out from around 5 yards out too which shouldn't be happening to a starting prop like him. He just lacks explosiveness and seems to be a bit of a plodder most of the time

Byrne did seem fatigued right from the start - OK that can happen with a younger prop and he has had to do big minutes last few games. But I think the pack is a unit and the balance is wrong - mostly due to injuries and suspensions and, it has to be said, some poor choices by the coaches. Starting now, improve the unit and we will see better from Byrne - especially when Havard returns. A real positve for me has been Hill. His physicallity has suprised me a bit, he seemed more promising as a ball handling/offloading prop in the Academy, if he can keep getting stronger and show those rugby talents we will have a belter.