KEY STATS: Marked tackling improvement but is one player being under-used?

Yahoo

09-08-2025

WHILE it is often criticised for its lack of size, Warrington Wolves' pack does not lack defensive strength.
And despite defeat against Wigan Warriors in Round 21, that is in evidence again with a look at the player stats from the game.
There are four players in particular whose numbers in defence jump off the page, with Luke Yates and Sam Stone both leading the way in terms of tackles made with 38 each.
Both were active from marker within that – Stone made 11 marker tackles, Yates 10 – while Yates completed 100 per cent of his tackles, with Stone only missing two.
Ben Currie was just behind the pair with 37 tackles without missing a single one while Ryan Matterson made 30 with just one miss.
Danny Walker (22) and Joe Philbin (11) also had a 100 per cent tackle completion rate amid a much-improved showing on the tackling front collectively.
Wire's missed tackle count of 20 is exactly half of their total from last week's defeat to Leigh Leopards and is their lowest figure since the Round 13 win over Castleford Tigers (19).
Clinical edge deserts Wire
In terms of metres gained with the ball, all of the top five players from the game were wearing primrose and blue.
Josh Thewlis led the way with 161m – helped heavily by his long-range interception try – followed by George Williams (152m), Toby King (149m), Danny Walker (133m) and Jake Thewlis (108m).
By contrast, only two Wigan players cleared the 100m mark – Jai Field (103m) and Ethan Havard (100m) – but there is a key figure within that area of the statistics that highlights Wire's lack of ruthlessness.
Both sides made three clean breaks each with Wigan converting all of theirs – two for Zach Eckersley and one from Brad O'Neill – into tries.
By contrast, only one of Warrington's three resulted in points – George Williams' burst through to score in the second half.
Was Max Wood underused?
No exact figure is available for the lengths of players' stints on the field, but Max Wood's felt very short – certainly no more than 15 second-half minutes.
However, a look at the stats hints at him perhaps being underused.
Against his former club, the young front-rower only carried the ball twice but they yielded 23 metres, many of them post-contact.
Last week at Leigh, too, he was only used in a very brief burst and his sole carry in that game made nine metres.
There will no doubt be an explanation as to why Wood is being used in this way but given he generally brings impact with the ball – he averages 7.42m per carry for the season as a whole – it is easy to see why there are plenty of supporters who feel he is under-utilised.