Quote Sacred Cow="Sacred Cow"What you say about the pivots is correct, there has been a complete lack of creativity. But to say the forwards have been making over 100 meters is just wrong. Whitbread has been our best by a mile, hit a 100 once and near as damn it one other time. Battye hit 100 against Leeds, before that he hadn’t got anywhere close. Nobody else up front has got near in any game. The backs have made good meters on our exit sets but the forwards not so much in the middle of the park when setting up position. We are bottom of the meters made table, bottom of the average gain table and also the tackle bust stats. The go forward just isn’t there. We regularly lose the ruck when we eventually get into good ball resulting in a slow play the ball giving less time and space for any creative play. Defensively the forwards have been ok no doubt it but with the ball much less effective.'"
I’ve had a look around the stats and I’m absolutely fine with Whitbread and Battye, Whitbread is the top tackler in the league, and Battye average gain is great, both there or there about at 100 metres which is fine. Atoni’s stats are atrocious. He does an average of 8 carries a game at an average of 50 metres gained a game. If those stats carry on he’s simply a waste of a quota spot. I’m sick to death of seeing him blowing out of his after literally 10 minutes with hands on hips. It’s simply not good enough, I’d rather play rob Butler who played really well against Catalan. I don’t expect Atoni to be like Paul Vaughn, but stats don’t lie and a average of 50 metres a game we might as well of spent that money on a half decent stand off and got a prop from the championship who’d blitz them stats.
