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.