Quote: Mugwump "Come off it. The way you paint this comparison anyone might think we haven't moved the ball toward the backs in years. This is patently absurd. Irrespective of whether you think Saints have played conservatively over the last two or three seasons the fact remains there have been plenty of occasions when we have opened up - runners, angles and all. And yet time after time we have found it enormously difficult to score tries from outside the 40m mark. So much so I almost fell off my chair when Meli scored that 70 yarder the other week.
Wigan, on the other hand, seem to score long-distance tries with great regularity. Yes, many of them are down to clever tactics, good distribution etc. But many others are purely down to pace, acceleration, elusiveness and guile. Words which are rarely used in the company of Meli, Gardner, Shenton & Wellens.
Is this a "world beating" Wigan back line? Aside from Tomkins - no. But then it doesn't need to be in order to beat ours.'"
I wasn't aware I'd made a comparison to Saints' players in the post you've quoted (which was in response to some pie wittering about my appraisal of the wi*an three-quarters).
I've already said I don't rate Meli/Gardner/Shenton and absolutely agree our backline lacks pace. Maybe that lack of pace has dictated our conservative gameplan, I don't know. But I do know that most of the time over the last 3 or so years that we've moved the ball out wide, it's been not so much pedestrian in terms of leg speed, but in terms of speed of ball - something amplified (very visibly) by the fact we've lacked dummy runners/not drawn defenders in before passing/just passed the ball along the line seemingly for the sake of it.
But then contrast that to some of the plays in the Leeds & Wire games - we looked fast (both of leg and of ball!) and tore some mean defences to shreds (albeit from 20-40m out, I grant you).
We do ideally need more pace in the side, I've not said we don't. But my point is that for the past 3 seasons, we've not deployed tactics and gameplays that have made the most of the players we have.