=#FF0000PEANLTIES FOR ST HELENS SHOULD BE IN RED

Every week I pay close attention to Jon Wilkins stats as he's a play I just can't make my mind up on.



He work rate in defence is as good as you can get from a backrow but its his attack, it's basically shocking! His meter making is near the lowest every week. I know he does his fair share of ball play.



If only he could just bring that extra attack to his play.

The stats say it all really - we absolutely creamed them in the forwards but they had some creativity and a bit of a clue (and a kicker) and so got all the scores. How could any team have that amount of upfront superiority and yet not be able to convert any more of it than that into points?

Judging Wilkin on this season's performances is harsh in the extreme given that he's had to be both our main tackling machine and our primary playmaker all season - expecting him to be able to eat up the yards as well is just unreasonable in the extreme.

I've just took a look at a sample of 6 games from last season to see what the impact this had upon his stats. In all honesty, it's not a lot. He often had a low metre count with a very low average per carry.

Fair enough. At the end of the day he's not a TP/Sia/Westwood who'll eat tacklers and chew up yards and judging him on that criteria still isn't entirely fair. He's a tackling machine who gives us clever running (when we have the halves to make use of it), good options in our kicking game and backup for the halves. With a team full of just Sias, Manus and TPs instead of the Wilkins, Flannerys and Flanagans, as exciting as it may be to watch, we'd struggle to win many of the big 'uns. For me he's still invaluable to the overall makeup of the side.

What the stats don't account for are the half breaks he makes around the ruck area which sets up a quick PTB for Roby to exploit.

Some of Wilkin's defensive stats are excellent, only 1 miss from 43 tackles is a great effort and he's putting in a shedload of work.



The only thing thing about that is whether a tackle machine should warrant top international wages, which I assume he will be on. I suppose that comes down to how well money is distributed throughout the team. He certainly shouldn't be playing a Sinfield type playmaker role or doing most of the kicking, that's for sure.

Even though your top metre makers were Makinson, Meli and Wellens.



How do the stats say it all 'really'?

Look at Paul Clough, with and average carry of 8.27

Why isn't he on the pitch longer, do you think? Is it that he's not physical enough in defence? He doesn't miss many, but he doesn't really dominate to oppo either?



When pondering Wilkin, I'm afraid that his role in the side as kicker and back up organiser has completely marginalised any go forward he may bring.

If we had one or two halves that could kick, he could go back to being a forward. He may not be the biggest, but he can complement the tougher guys with some clever line running. We haven't really seen that for a few seasons, though.



Did anyone think Flash had a good game? He certainly did a lot of good work in the first half.

We do, he's been playing in the reserves most of the year.



I thought Flanagan had by far his best game in attack for us. Showed a bit of promise which I hadn't seen much of, hope he kicks on now.

Exactly this.



We need a half back and some potency and pace in the backs, but we knew that anyone. I feel sorry for our pack, it's dominated a really strong pack and got no reward for it.

Wilkin will nearly always have a low metre count, he,s not a hard running momentum player. His game is short passing and changing direction of attack something our half backs should be doing more of. He is very similar to Sinfield and O'Loughlin leaving the hard yards to the bigger guys.

You need a couple of playmakers in the pack if your half backs are not giving the team attacking options, I,m just glad Manu is on board next season for obvious reasons.