I actually think our kicking close to the line has been as good this year as it has in a while. That has all been down to George Williams IMO whos very talented in that respect.

He'll only continue to improve as well and Sam Tomkins will improve us further.

Totally agree. Our short kicking game is not as bad as some may think, although I do agree it went astray in the Grand Final.

It is not just the short kicking game - it is the whole breaking down tight defence near the line - for some reason Wigan seem to have less chance of scoring from 5 -10 yards out then from further out. For me it has been an issue for at least the last two years, there were signs last season with the short pass/turn back inside move that worked quite quite well late in the season that finally the penny had dropped that there were other options - will Sam make a difference - I hope so because many times last season when Wigan were camped on the opponents line that I genuinely did not feel that Wigan had the guile or ability to score, but from 10 yards+ distance I had much more confidence.

Don't all side struggle to get past a set defence from close range? Are Wigan any different to other sides in that respect?

Quite so. When we successfully defend repeat sets near our line, it's praised as good defence on our part rather than poor attacking, but when other teams do it to us it's our attack that's at fault, and nothing to do with their good defence.

In my opinion Saints are by far the best team for scoring short range tries.
They are generally not a team that can go full length unlike ourselves & Leeds, keep them pinned in their own line and don't give away penalties and they can be beaten (quite convincingly too). It's only when the ref starts giving them penalties (or the opposition give away possession in their own twenty) that they get on a roll and score from short range.



Look at our last two visits to LP for evidence.

Of course it should be difficult to score from close range but not as hard as we make it look. As mentioned Saints are masters of it (but in fairness that down to their pretty dull style of play) and the other top sides are far better then us.

It's certainly an area to work on. We are probably the best team in the league from deep (but get labelled as a structured team who aren't the best to watch) but we'll not always be able to rely on that.

Yep, and perhaps no coincidence that their coach made a career of short-range, barge-over tries when he was playing.

Well that doesn't work. Just because our defence may be excellent it doesn't follow our opponent's defense is equally good. If it isn't then if we still struggle to score near the line against less good defences then there is an issue with our attack.

What you want to look at is how we go attacking close to the line v the same team as a comparable side. So compare how good we are v Saints close to the line compared to how good Leeds are v Saints close to the line. No idea if these sorts of stats are available but if the general impression is we aren't so good in this area on attack then the fact we might make other teams look poor close to our line is neither here nor there.