Whilst I agree with others saying we're a quality prop short, I think it's too easy to focus on some underwhelming stats on meters made whilst glossing over the work they do when it comes to our outstanding defence & energy levels. Obviously in a perfect world you could get a rare player like Walmsley who makes meters for fun but can defend well whilst doing very decent minutes - but how many players of that calibre are in SL? Rightly or wrongly, we've asked our pack to play a role in recent years which is focussed much more on aggressive defence, mobility and durability than any other team in the league. Post-contact meters are still important, but I'd avoid using them as a stick to beat our forwards with when you can be sure that Lam and the coaching staff will be judging them on a whole range of different factors.

My worry is not so much that the pack isn't up to it - we came within a hair's breadth of winning the GF last year without Havard, & him with our other young forwards all have another 12 months experience. It's more that a couple of injuries means we suddenly start relying too much on Clubby or Clark.

I agree with some of that, we do clearly prioritise having fit forwards who can make lots of tackles and win the wrestle. That is important and it does win us lots of games. It doesn't really explain why we had the forwards taking lots of carries in the CC semi against Leeds and the GF against Saints and failing to make ground right from minute 1 though. They weren't tired at that point, they were just getting dominated.

I've no issue with us generally being light and focusing on fitness/defence, but we still need a way to win those attritional territorial games where the opposition or conditions are pushing everything up the middle, especially given that both finals are often played in the rain, and our strongest opposition have the best prop in the league.

I think my worry is that whilst we did come close to winning that final, it took a Herculean defensive effort to repel Saints because we struggled getting away from our end and you look at that game and pick out the bits we can improve on. That is the glaring area of concern and when you consider Saints had Walmsley on one leg playing and they’ve since added Passi who seems to be adding more go forward than Graham and it’s a real worry. I think we can take Saints no problems in the backs when everyone is available and our back row is better than theirs as well but the front row is probably the most important area of the field that you need to win, to then let the rest of your side play and if you aren’t getting anywhere near an even share in that battle, then suddenly the whole side is on the back foot.

On the plus side as you say, we have Havard back and Byrne was a real miss after his Covid set back last year also. He’s stepping up this season so far and then Bateman will get us forward easier as and when he moves in to the loose forward role. The side is great in pretty much every area and it’s actually pretty heartening to pinpoint one position so easily we could improve. It’s far from a disaster though and we can still win things with what we have IMO. It’s just if you get that one big prop who can dent the line, then we look a very good team indeed.

All fair comments - & to be fair I wouldn't argue for a second that our pack is as good as Saints' pack either. They've the benchmark in the league and we're still short in that area - definitely the priority for strengthening if we have the cap space & budget. Signing GB was clearly with the view that we could've done with a prop who can make the big meters, so I'm not saying that this isn't an area for us to improve on either.

All I'd say though is that herculean defensive effort wasn't just to keep the score line respectable, but was an act of God away from keeping them completely tryless after 80 minutes. Can we be at that level every week? No, but we've grown accustomed to very good defence over the last few seasons, and when we're really on it we win big games off the back of it. I don't have the stats for when we beat Saints last season to hand, but I bet the meters made were less than spectacular. Our defence on the other hand was on another level, and I don't think any other team in the country could've got close to either that or the GF performance to be honest.

Anyway, I don't want to carry on building them up so much that they all sound like world beaters! But at the same time it's clear that Wigan have valued different qualities in forwards than just the meters they make - and we ignore this when we judge forwards on their meterage alone.

Agree about Byrne too. Might just be me but he looks more imposing this year.

Not wishing an injury on anyone but if Saints lose Walmsley for the back end of the season they won't get anywhere near the GF.
Can't remember a time when I've seen a Saints team with such a lack of creativity, if they can't trample over you they aren't winning.
On the other side of the coin though if they had a Hastings in the team no-one would get anywhere near them.

Looks like Byrne will be out on Thursday, charged grade B crusher tackle

He does and hopefully now the barbers are open he’ll look even more menacing

Woolf is very lucky Saints were so far ahead of everyone else in 2019 - in terms of performance level he's taken them backwards.

I think they'll be looking at replacing Fages with Lewis Dodd soon.

I'd replace Fages with a wet paper towel. It's probably tougher.

And their 'best full-back in the comp'? We've got two full-backs better than him!

Whether their FB/HB’s are better than ours is irrelevant IMO. What matters (to them) is that as a whole when they play or train their team generally clicks and works well together. We can sit here all day saying “well our FB is better than theirs”, but the fact of the matter is is that their side plays better together than we do and until we play better than then consistently together we won’t topple them.

I don't agree. I think Fages is a tough little halfback who takes more than his fair share of knocks, very rarely misses many games and defends well in the line.

Agreed his ability to defend basically saw him make the 7 shirt his and meant Richardson had to leave to join Cas.

Don’t think he gets the credit he deserves because he isn’t a superstar.

Agreed. I think he’s a solid half back, he’d go well at Wigan if Saints wanted to discard him.

Didn't Lomax have the most try assists in SL last year? Coote must have been up there too. Fages and Lomax both top10 so far this year.

We have been without Coote and Percival which impacts our attack. Woolf is clearly a conservative coach but couple of good flicked passes from centres for tries at the weekend.

Fages will eventually move to hooker and Lewis Dodd will be a more dangerous ball player in his place.