Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 11:31 am  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

But you are effectively naming two players in Clough and Puletua as props when they played the majority of their games in the back row last season.

Paul Clough played most of his games in 2010 off the bench as a prop and is no longer a back rower.

We've swapped Hargreaves and Emmitt (two plodders) for Perry and LMS (two internationals), got rid of Fozzard who couldn't get a game and Maurie whose body was falling apart and turned Clough into a top quality prop (check out his stats against, say, Andy Coley who had a big season for Wigan in 2010).

Saints are far stronger in the pack for 2011; finally Graham will have some genuine quality support in the front row.

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 11:53 am  

FearTheVee wrote:

SNIP

But if you play Soliola and Flannery in the back row then who is going to play in your centres? Meli? Wheeler? One of those at least will be in the centres.

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 11:58 am  

inside_man wrote:

But if you play Soliola and Flannery in the back row then who is going to play in your centres? Meli? Wheeler? One of those at least will be in the centres.

One of those at least? One at most you mean surely, Shenton has one spot nailed down. If Wheeler is fit he'll pay centre IMO - he played there when fit in 2010 and did a great job.

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:05 pm  

FearTheVee wrote:

One of those at least? One at most you mean surely, Shenton has one spot nailed down. If Wheeler is fit he'll pay centre IMO - he played there when fit in 2010 and did a great job.

Soliola was bought as a centre (poor decision IMO) Wheeler has been unable to string more than five consecutive games together for four years.
Perry is already missing for the first 4 / 5 games of the season.

A fully fit Saints starting 17 will be a difficult game for anyone, but after that there is a big lack of strength in depth.

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:07 pm  

FearTheVee wrote:

One of those at least? One at most you mean surely, Shenton has one spot nailed down. If Wheeler is fit he'll pay centre IMO - he played there when fit in 2010 and did a great job.

Completely forgot about Shenton tbh. And I know if Wheeler is fit he'll play centre, but how often is he fit?

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:12 pm  

In Saints favour, they had a poor season in terms of injury yet finished 2nd with a supposed weak pack. I think Saints will be strong up front if they don't have the same injury situation.

Forgetting depth for one minute and just picking the 5 best men from each team. Then i'd have to agree that Saints have the top pack.

I'd say Wire are 2nd.

Morley runner up 2 years running for MoS
Monaghan is the leagues best hooker for me.
Anderson and Harrison are absolute monsters in defence and tire out the opposition with huge bone crunching hits.
Westwood is THE most underrated player in SL
Gaz Carvell seems to be our weakest link in the pack yet i'm sure the top clubs would take him.

The one thing no one can compete with Wigan though is the depth but if Wire and Saints keep their 1st players fit i wouldn't be too envious of Wigan

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:19 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Soliola was bought as a centre (poor decision IMO) Wheeler has been unable to string more than five consecutive games together for four years.
Perry is already missing for the first 4 / 5 games of the season.

A fully fit Saints starting 17 will be a difficult game for anyone, but after that there is a big lack of strength in depth.

I'm not so sure about this lack of depth.

Wellens
Gardner
Shenton
Wheeler
Meli
Pryce
Eastmond
Graham
Roby
Perry
Wilkin
Soliola
Flannery

Moore
LMS
TP
Clough

Outside that we have Lomax/Foster/Armstrong/Gaskell as cover in the backs with 50 SL appearances and 23 tries between them.

In the forwards we have Ashurst/Dixon/Magennis/Frodsham with 89 SL appearances between them.

We had awful luck with injuries last year and the squad was strong enough to finish 2nd and reach the GF; in my opinion we have strengthened for 2011. Yes, we don't have as much depth as Wigan - but you can only play 17 players.

Had the situation been reversed in the GF and Wigan had Tomkins and TL injured (and Saints with Pryce and Eastmond fit) it wouldn't have mattered how many back rowers Wigan had in their squad.

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:22 pm  

I thought that there were six in a pack.

But you can't just do that, you have to consider at least nine (3 subs) and in many cases ten (four subs).

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:25 pm  

FearTheVee wrote:

I'm not so sure about this lack of depth.

Wellens
Gardner
Shenton
Wheeler
Meli
Pryce
Eastmond
Graham
Roby
Perry
Wilkin
Soliola
Flannery

Moore
LMS
TP
Clough

Outside that we have Lomax/Foster/Armstrong/Gaskell as cover in the backs with 50 SL appearances and 23 tries between them.

In the forwards we have Ashurst/Dixon/Magennis/Frodsham with 89 SL appearances between them.

We had awful luck with injuries last year and the squad was strong enough to finish 2nd and reach the GF; in my opinion we have strengthened for 2011. Yes, we don't have as much depth as Wigan - but you can only play 17 players.

Had the situation been reversed in the GF and Wigan had Tomkins and TL injured (and Saints with Pryce and Eastmond fit) it wouldn't have mattered how many back rowers Wigan had in their squad.

And how many of those do you honestly believe would get anywhere near the Wigan side especially when you consider what has happened at U20/ reserve level for the last three years.

Re: Warrington Pack : Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:31 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

And how many of those do you honestly believe would get anywhere near the Wigan side especially when you consider what has happened at U20/ reserve level for the last three years.

How can you say that with Pryce in your squad, he's only good for a 10m out barge over try to the corner, biggest donkey i've seen for years and is it you that is one of his biggest defenders ?