I can’t bring myself to type Cooper and Singletons stats

Unbelievable

So although we are in need of a second rower. It’s clearly more important we get a powerful forward. Mago’s frustratingly has the size but can’t keep hold of the ball. He still need to be in the match day squad for me as the reward of him making meters out weights the risk of him dropping the ball.

A serious question, why are we obsessed with the metres made by the forwards?
We are top for metres made by the team.
A metre is a metre regardless of whether it's Harry Smith or Liam Byrne.

However we are also top for errors made, which IMO is the major problem at the moment.

I think it's interesting to look at the stats for the packs because that's it's a large part of where platform is made for good field position. But looking at metres made by our pack just tells one side of the story, looking at metres made by our pack vs. the opposition pack tells us how our forwards are doing in attack and defence, i.e., winning the collision. But you need both, because the forwards are working hard to gain metres and limit the metres made by the opposition.

It's not definitive, it's still only one part of the picture because our backs do lots of carries from our half - and of course I agree, our error rate is the statistic that's defining Wigan performances at the moment.

Because metres by the backs do not negate a lack of metres by the forwards. If anything, you could say that if a lot of the work is being done by the backs then the metres per carry from the forwards should be higher as they have to do less work. A simplification but ultimately our forward pack is clearly lacking in power.

Also the forwards make the space for the half-backs - the lack of go forward means the half-backs are under pressure almost at once stifling any attacks. The metres made by the backs are distorted by individual runs which often lead to nothing as well. If things continue as they are amongst the forwards we will struggle when we come up against the better teams.

It's simply comparing their work ethic to players of the same position in other teams and pointing our their sheer laziness and lack of skill in doing the second most important thing in RL after catching the ball.

A few of us have already highlighted how we use our forwards to win the battle defensively. Any comparisons on that?

There were a number of sets from us on Friday when a prop didn't even touch the ball.

It isn't though is it?
What about tackles made, marker tackles, carries etc etc,.

Fans tend to see the spectacular, rather than the workmanlike.

Brian McTigue was one of the best prop forwards I ever saw, but he never ran 100 metres in a game ever.

Coopers stats make me wonder just what we can get out of any prop. Surely that’s tactical if he’s taking in 4 carries for 15 metres? This is a guy who had chewed up ground for fun since he came back from the NRL (and in the NRL). I’m at a loss with it all to be honest. It can’t just be a coincidence that we kill every prop from a statistical POV? We all long for Walmsley, Vaughan or even somebody like Dupree at the minute but I’m starting to wonder if even those guys would play for 30 mins and make less than 60-70 metres here.

I think if our props actually took plenty of carries, made more metres per carry (4 is just embarrassing) it would cause less fatigue for the outside backs and perhaps our attack would be more fluid with less errors.

Dupree is proving to be a great find isn't he. Not sure if he's off contract, but I'd be all over him for 2024.

Looks like he could be, but I've not looked too deep to see if he's signed an extensionhttps

It is not just about metres made, it is more how and where those metres are made and where on the pitch. What is the point of someone like Marshall running the ball back 30 metres say from a kick then the next sets we only gain 10 metres from the forwards, the 30 m gain is of little consequence.

What we need are forwards who can gain metres when it matters and get a quicker play the ball and so quicker distribution from dummy half (areas we really, really struggle in) so the half-backs have some space to work in and can use our backs in a better way other than just as battering rams - we might as well play second rows as centres for all the good they do as anything else.

I do not think it is any co-incidence that when we play Saints, Leeds, Catalan or Warrington that our pack become totally ineffective especially if the ground is a bit heavy. We are so reliant on Field, French and Marshall to get us wins that it is painful.

I get the point about someone like McTigue (and Potter, Case and many others) but someone like that and the ones mentioned where streets ahead of anyone we have now.

As I’ve said before we don’t rely on our props up make meters. It’s definitely tactical.

We use our backs to start sets, secondrows to build sets and generally middles to finish exits sets.

Near the line/in the attacking third we generally use the props to engage the other middles finding certain points on the field to draw in other middles and set up attacking plays.

More often than not if there is an overlap it can be traced to the middle of the field.

In defence they are expected to win the arm wrestle and limit meters by having a higher work rate in this element of the game, I think this is where we have the issue with our middles as they are not managing to dominate/consistently win the wrestle with our current prop rotation.