Philbin is better than Musgrove, i know he's not been here long, but Philbin has some superb games and some mediocre games. Every single game Musgrove has played has just been ok, he basically comes on to be a steady eddie and Give vaughan and Harrison a rest before they come back on.

I'm not saying he's bad because he isn't, but he's NOWHERE near how he played in the NRL.

Some of the NRL players take a full season to adapt to the way the game is played in Super League, English weather and pitch conditions sometimes longer, Some don`t make the transition and are OK again once they return to the NRL.



Hopefully he will play better with experience as he plays more games.



Matt King was poor for his 1st season with Wire. Michael Monaghan was average at halfback for his first season, but was brilliant once Tony Smith moved him to hooker.

Max Wood is young. He could develop into a right cracker.



Philbin and Bullock are basically the finished article and both can be improved on with careful recruitment. The Philbin of 2019 would be a different story.

Quote Smiffy27="Smiffy27"I don't get carried away with stats ... as I'm not sure what goes through the head of those who count the stats.'" Regarding stats I am pretty certain the club performance team review them and the players wear sports telemetry equipment such as https://www.catapult.com/solutions/athlete-monitoring. The club has a dedicated performance analyst also.

Quote Smiffy27="Smiffy27"I don't get carried away with stats ... as I'm not sure what goes through the head of those who count the stats.'" Regarding stats I am pretty certain the club performance team review them and the players wear sports telemetry equipment such as https://www.catapult.com/solutions/athlete-monitoring. The club has a dedicated performance analyst also.

Musgrove made 30m against Hull KR, Bullock made 26m against Salford.



We play quite a rigid structure in terms of our sets of 6, you can bet Thewlis & Ashton take the first two, King or Tai take third, Vaughan takes a hit up followed by Dufty then a kick.



We know Vaughan is one of the best in the league for gaining ground, so that's his job.



If Philbin isn't being asked to take the ball up as part of the game plan he shouldn't be criticised for a lack of metres. I don't know why that is the case as Philbin was always a decent carrier of the ball, but he just isn't being used like that by Burgess. It has to be deliberate, there's no way they would get away with it otherwise...

Quote Wires71="Wires71"Regarding stats I am pretty certain the club performance team review them and the players wear sports telemetry equipment such as https://www.catapult.com/solutions/athlete-monitoring. The club has a dedicated performance analyst also.'" I bet these analysts can come up with all sorts of useful stuff. But at the end of the day you can't really beat someone who has played, watched & coached the game watching video analysis & making decisions. Stats are OK but there is always a bit of a story behind the stats. You can't just make decisions based on a few simple stats.

Quote Wires71="Wires71"Regarding stats I am pretty certain the club performance team review them and the players wear sports telemetry equipment such as https://www.catapult.com/solutions/athlete-monitoring. The club has a dedicated performance analyst also.'" I bet these analysts can come up with all sorts of useful stuff. But at the end of the day you can't really beat someone who has played, watched & coached the game watching video analysis & making decisions. Stats are OK but there is always a bit of a story behind the stats. You can't just make decisions based on a few simple stats.

Very true, i remember it well, i still have the shirt with monaghan 7 on



I hope he does hit his NRL best over here as he'll be great for us. I'm a fan of him anyway he just seems a bit more reserved playing for us, hopefully firmer grounds and consistant decent weather will see him firing for us.

As with Bullock, he does have the odd Game where he seems to realise he's a big dude and find his aggression. He's a cracking forward at his best but never seems to be consistant with it. Burgess must see all the good aspects of him or we wouldn't have given him a new deal.

I hope we extend Wood's contract as i think he's really good, and at 20 years old will only get better.

I really liked tge look of Luke Thomas in pre-season, i thought he was on a higher level than before so i hope he can come back and improve like Harrison has.

Fitzgibbon, Currie, Nicholson, Crowther and Holroyd are all brilliant and instill a hard hitting, skillfull backline we've not had for ages

Yeah I was just picking up on the "I'm not sure what goes through the head of those who count the stats" comment. Seemed a bit dismissive of stats to me.

Iver not really watched the nrl en masse for many a year so I wasn't familiar with our number 12, but he's a bit of a curates egg of a signing



He's probably a slightly above average nrl 2nd row, ad far as I'm aware he hasn't been in origin contention. Buy burgess obviously knew bringing him over, he would be HIS version of whatever Powell was expecting from mcguire and previously, olly Holmes.



He must be the mentor our young back rowers didn't get last year, a standard setter, a pack leader, I wouldn't cross burgess and I wouldn't short change fitzgibbon.



The other thing to think about here, is that he was being courted by Leeds, and a few posters on there have lamented missing out on his signing.



Just imagine the difference he could be making to Leeds powder puff set of forwards this year. It's as close to visually measurable as you'll get

I think leeds were favourites to sign him until fitzgibbon spoke to both Kurt gidley and Mick monaghan at the knights and they both couldnt speak highly enough of our club which i believe swung it in our favour.

He refers to himself as Lachy Fitz…..normally that kind of thing would get my goat yet with him it just makes me love him more. I spend a lot of the 80 mins watching him - he’s a brilliant competitor who loves the attrition and clearly hates losing.

Yes ... the more you question stats the more you see their limitations & how they can be used.