After pushing Champions St Helens oh so close in their last game, Warrington hosted Leeds in confident mood.
The Wolves started exceptionally well with some enterprising rugby down the left with two magnificent breaks that should have yielded points but didn’t inside the first five minutes.
But a try for David Fusitu’a straight after this set the tone for the rest of the game as the Rhinos ploughed through the Wolves with ease scoring eight tries and scoring points for fun, something they’ve not done all season till now.
The performance had fans booing at halftime and throughout the second half as Leeds leapfrogged them in the table leaving the Wire in the bottom third of the table.
On the back of the defeat, we turned to the stats and one stat in particular sticks out and goes someway to explaining why the Wolves were so soundly beaten.
Warrington only had four players who surpassed the 100 metre mark in terms of metres made with the ball in hand during the game. On the flip side, Leeds had 10 players – over half their team – who passed this all important marker.
This tells us two things: Warrington weren’t making enough metres to truly test a Leeds defence which looked flimsy early in the game and the second being that they allowed the Rhinos to roll down the field with too much ease which unsurprisingly translated to plenty of points.
Taking a closer look at the four Warrington players to make a 100 metres or more is also telling. The top metre makers were the centres Peter Mata’utia (139) and Toby King (136). This isn’t too out of the ordinary as centres often take hard powerful carries at the starts of sets but the other two raise eyebrows for different reasons.
Mike Cooper made 105 metres and was the only forward in Wolves’ colours to make over 100 metres demonstrating how the Wolves failed to get a foothold in the game down the middle as Leeds ran riot in this area. Only completing four sets of 11 in the second half won’t have helped this either.
The only other player to surpass 100 metres was George Williams who was criticised after the game and did have a difficult night throwing an intercept for Ash Handley’s second try.
He made 114 metres which shows us two things: he was willing to get involved even when things were getting tough for him and his side which is a good sign. However, the fact he was left running so much suggests he had limited attacking options on his outside. It’s a halfback’s job to create for others not make metres so the fact he resorted to running so much indicates that limited options were open to him making the Wolves’ offence far too predictable and easy to defend.
Looking at the 10 players to make 100 metres or more from Leeds, four were forwards with Matt Prior even making 100 metres from the bench and every member of the backline made over 100 metres as Leeds started sets exceptionally well. Ash Handley made 224 metres whilst Zak Hardaker made 191 metres and 10 busts.
The 10th player to make 100 metres for Leeds was Kruise Leeming as he devastated the Warrington middle with darting runs from dummyhalf.
