Make sure to check out my report if you haven't already for a flavour of how poor Wire were at the Totally Wicked Stadium on Friday. The nature of the Wire display makes this a difficult piece to write as with so many players having poor games, it isn't easy to rank them when not many stood out in a positive sense. Anyway, here goes...
Austin may be the flashy talent that has the spark, but Clark is still the star of this team. He was nearly the scorer of the first try, and dragged us back into the game with a brilliant try from dummy half early on in the second period. Despite being our best player on the night, he didn't have that good a match, fumbling an early ball and arguably being bailed out by Austin for the first try. By Clark's standards this was average - but still the best of a ridiculously bad bunch on Friday.
2 - Matt Davis
Davis was good off the bench and showed plenty of energy and desire. He was comfortable with the ball and wasn't afraid to take men on. Despite not being on long, he was one of our best players. Says a lot.
3 - Ben Currie
Didn't see a lot of the ball, but worked hard without it and tackled well. His last-ditch tackle on McCarthy-Scarsbrook was an unbelievable piece of defending, when everyone else had abandoned their duties.
4 - Joe Philbin
He did okay without seeing much of the ball, making 24 tackles, which is respectable. When he did have the ball he looked to use it offensively but was often left without a lot of options.
5 - Chris Hill
He plugged away and didn't do a lot wrong, and had a fair number of carries of the ball. Four offloads is a good tally too, though sometimes they don't come off and he looks like he is overplaying. Certainly one of our less bad players.
6 - Blake Austin
Scored the opening try with some quick reactions but struggled to have any influence in the game beyond that point. Saw plenty of the ball but was often relied on for creativity without support from other players.
7 - Josh Charnley
Another one who saw very little of the ball. Was very unlucky to see his try disallowed in the second half, as it was a very good finish in the corner. I feel that he could've tried to take his man on more than he did, though that's maybe harsh.
8 - Jason Clark
He did okay from the bench, making 29 tackles, which is a good return. The time he spent on the ball didn't amount to much and he gave away a needless penalty too.
9 - Mike Cooper
This game showed the importance of Cooper to the team - in ten minutes with Cooper in the sin bin we conceded 12 points. His sin-binning was arguably a little severe and is a very isolated incident for a usually well-disciplined player. Aside from that incident, he did okay.
10 - Jack Hughes
A poor game from Hughes. He actually boasts some of the highest tackle stats of the squad on the night, but still missed three, two of which were for tries.
11 - Tom Lineham
An idiotic decision to go in so carelessly on Regan Grace as he was scoring, one which is likely to result in a ban, but apart from that he was okay, and starved of service.
12 - Ben Murdoch-Masila
This was one of Murdoch-Masila's worst games, actually. He missed six tackles and only completed five - a woeful rate. The only reason he doesn't rank especially lowly is that he did well with a push to the line before Clark's try and after sustaining an injury in the second half, he wasn't on long enough for his display to be the worst in the team.
King started the game quite well but this ended up being an error-ridden performance, capped off by Josh Charnley having a try disallowed for King being offside.
14 - Ryan Atkins
Four tackles completed and three missed. Good Lord. He made a few handling errors too. One thing I will give him is that he looked a threat in front of the tryline.
I really struggle to see what Tasi brings to the team. He had seven carries of the ball yet only ran 25 metres, averaging less than four metres per carry. Awful.
16 - Declan Patton
The lack of creativity from Patton on Friday night was startling, with the halfback struggling to have any impact at all on the game. Shocking for the Makinson try. This was easily his worst game of the season so far.
17 - Stefan Ratchford
An absolutely diabolical performance from a player who has been one of our best in recent years. Ratchford missed a few tackles which led to tries, as well as the lack of dealing with a Coote kick, which led to another try. This was one of the most shambolic things I've ever seen on a rugby pitch. He is still brilliant and I still love him, but blimey he had a bad night.
A night where no one had a particularly good game and a lot of the squad had very bad games. Individual mistakes kept occurring which made it an impossible task to compete with a lively and slick St Helens team. Given the manner of this defeat, and the possibility of Bryson Goodwin, Jake Mamo and Ben Westwood becoming available for selection again, I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes for next week's visit of Salford.
Have a read of my match report and see what I thought of the match as a whole, and check back on the blog this week for the build-up to the Salford game. We go again!
It's always our year.
Daniel (@aloosewire)
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