pretty interesting discussion about this game on the cowboys forum, and how high they rate their pack, and how low they rate ours.
bear in mind, they were without Matt Scoot, and we were without Fifita and Lewis, I am not using David as he isnt a sure thing to play.
it was interesting to go through the stats, but our forwards ran for 995m and theirs for 874m, giving us a +121 on the game.
stats for the game:
Arona 57m - Asiata 117m
Bukuya 65m - Cooper 190m
Ennis 57m - Granville 60m
Gallen 265m - Hannant 150m
Graham 144m - Hoare 47m
Heino 112m - Kostjasyn 30m
Prior 128m - Lowe 46m
Taga 89m - Tamou 144m
Tupou 78m - Taumalolo 90m
so i dug a little deeper, and went on season averages of the packs. on the averages, we were at 855.63m and they were 850.21m.
subtracting the averages, Sharks (995-855.63 = 139.37) Cowboys (874-850.21 = 23.79) our pack lifted incredibly.
Arona 45.4m - Asiata 84.52m
Bukuya 69.01m - Cooper 118.15m
Ennis 30m - Granville 72.2m
Gallen 220.1m - Hannant 104.85m
Graham 146.9m - Hoare 57.13m
Heino 111.23m - Kostjasyn 18.87m
Prior 80.83m - Lowe 98.45m
Taga 73.73m - Tamou 145.88m
Tupou 78.54m - Taumalolo 150.16m
dug a bit deeper again, as they were harping on about Matt Scott not playing. So, I have taken Hoare out of their line up and replaced Scott, and I removed Arona and Prior and added Fifita and Lewis.
We average 981.08 and they average 932.96, again giving us the advantage.
the one thing that hurts them in the forward battle is kostjasyn, but our forwards are better than theirs, and this is the area we have beaten them in both games.