I'm sure he gave away at least 1 penalty as well.

Farrell has won Wigan's player of the month award for February and in a straw poll on twitter, taken by George Riley, asking who has been the best player so far this year, Farrell finished top with 30% of the vote. He had big shoes to fill at the beginning of the season starting in a position occupied in previous seasons by internationals Gareth Hock, Ryan Hoffman and Joel Tomkins and at the moment seems to be doing a great job.

To see how well he's doing in comparison to the last three premier second rowers we've had I've compared Farrell's stats per game so far with these players stats per game for the season they were a starting second rower, that is 2010 for Joel, '11 for Hoff and last year for Hock.



Although it's probably too early to draw significant conclusions, at the moment he is comparing favourably in most categories. He's averaging more metres, carries, tackles and breaks as well as missing fewer tackles (none) and making fewer errors. He is giving away more penalties though and not offloading anywhere near as much which may explain his low error count.

Is Farrell now as good as any of these players were for us and is he ready for a spot in the world cup team? It seems as though he may be, I hope he'll be able to play at the level he currently is for the rest of the year and many more and not leave after having one good year like the last three have.

Turning into a quality player is Farrell, works very hard in defence and has that cutting edge in attack. If he can develop his offload game a bit he'll not only fill the gap of Hock but will easily surpass him. Slightly surprised at the stats above of him giving away more penalties than Hock, I'd never noticed he gave many penalties away.

Haven't watched the TV coverage yet, but he was my MoM tonight, and yet again I don't remember him missing a tackle...

He was immense again tonight. A tackling machine!

best player form wise we have at the moment, and I agree with Phil Clarke, he has played better and better each game this year, As a second row at Uni I try to model my work rate after this type of player, so I massively respect him for everything he does at wigan, and if he maintains this will be a shoe in for england at the world cup this year

Faz is starting to remind me of Andy Goodway.

Not the same style of player for me but turning into a very good one nevertheless.

Reminds me more of Mick Cassidy.

I sincerely hope Faz is setting his sigths higher than "solid clubman", becasue that's all Cassidy ever was.

That's why I compared him to Goodway. A relentless tackling machine and carves through defences with ease, plus a born match winner.

Farrell is a fantastic second row and his attack and defence this season have been brilliant, I prefer him to Hock because his performances are more consistent, he also comes up with little moments of magic as seen in previous seasons as he is always in the right place at the right time, who'll ever forget his Good Friday try in 2011?

Currently the best back rower in Super League. And will only get better with age, he's nowhere near his "peak" age yet.

From a selfish point of view dont want him anywhere near the England set up . Dont want Macnamarra

anywhere near him .

Watching Faz at the moment is worth the drive south alone

Another 44 tackles on Friday with none missed plus 144 metres (oh and a try)
Negatives one error and one penalty.

Talk about taking an opportunity when it's presented to you. He looked like a lad that was getting fed up being a bench player these past two years and his game seemed to stagnate. He's seen Hock leave and Hansen get injured and has gone from 3rd choice second row to 1st at Wigan and his forms that good he must be a strong candidate for a spot in England first 17.

You would like to think so, but with McNamara in charge it will probably end up with someone like Danny Kirmond getting ahead of him.

To be fair Kirmond is underrated. He was excellent last season.

I think he is a good player, but no way he should be getting in ahead of the likes of Liam Farrell, just thats how I can see it going under McNamara!

I'm another that rates Kirmond and would have him here in a shot. I see him as another Ben Westwood who'll continue to get better and better after making the shift from being a wing or centre early in their career through to now playing in the forwards.

That's a side issue though and I get the point about McNamara. It's not players like Kirmond he shouldn't be selecting though its the tried and failed like Wilkin and to a lesser extent JJB.

A question worth asking is would he be as effective outside of wigan? Granted his defensive prowess is obviously impressive. But would his offensive contribution be as significant on the shoulder of a player other than blake green with whom he already has a fantastic link?

Good players adapt. If he would be unable to then he obviously wouldn't be as good as is being made out. Personally, I like him. It's just his size that worries me when it comes to the next level. At the moment I'd stick with the "big" back rowers like Westwood, Hock, Ellis (if he gets fit), Sam Burgess.

Liams Stats are outstanding and he's not alone, just to re-itterate what a few people have been talking about with our youngsters stepping up and our defence being solid, top of the missed tackles table is Liam Farrell with 0 from 226 big pat on the back, joint second is two more of our youngsters in dom crosby and logan tompkins missing just 1 tackle each from a combined 121 tackles and joint third are more of our young crop gil dudson, greg burke and sam powell all missing just 3 tackles from a combined 235 tackles. These are great signs for the future, all our youngsters out perfoming our seasoned pro's in the defence department!

Stevo mentioned on Backchat that "a few NRL teams" are watching him.....would be a bigger loss than Sam imo

On current form, he should be the first name on the teamsheet.