12 Jun 2019
THE NUMBERS GAME: GIANTS VS ST HELENS
All the stats and facts you need to know ahead of our trip to St Helens, this Friday
The Giants head to table toppers St Helens this weekend, looking to bounce back from last weekend’s dramatic golden point loss at the Castleford Tigers. With the Saints also losing last weekend, they will also be looking to return to winning ways.
Saints looking to cut out the errors
Last weekend saw the league leaders St Helens lose only their second Betfred Super League game of the season, a 23-22 loss in golden point extra time at the London Broncos. One of the key stats from that game was the amount of missed tackles made by the redvee.
Missed tackles by Saints v London Broncos (09.06.19)
Matty Lees – 10
Danny Richardson – 4
Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook – 4
Morgan Knowles – 4
Kevin Naiqama – 3
Jonny needs to be stopped
Jonny Lomax missed the game in London last weekend, so he will be fresh for the clash at the Totally Wicked Stadium. Lomax is the joint tenth try scorer in the competition this season, scoring ten tries, whilst also contributing 15 assists for his teammates. The half-back has also made 1218 metres this season for the Saints. Lomax has also made 60 tackle busts so far in 2019.
It's Thursday and we still haven't stopped watching this @lomax_1990 pass 😍
Awesome assist from the @Saints1890 man 👏 #NewBeginnings pic.twitter.com/T33aW5jq4O
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) April 25, 2019
Big tackles needed to keep Saints at bay
Despite a narrow loss last weekend at Castleford, the Giants will have to make sure their defence is up to the task this week, to keep a high scoring Saints side to as low a score as possible. There were a lot of impressive efforts in defence for the West Yorkshire outfit despite the defeat.
Number of tackles made v Castleford Tigers (07.06.19)
Michael Lawrence – 49
Adam O’Brien – 38
Alex Mellor – 37
Ukuma Ta’ai – 33
Matthew English – 32
Matagi putting the hard work in
Suaia Matagi
has been an unsung hero of sorts for the Giants so far this season. Matagi
joined the Giants at the latter end of last season and has been a regular in
the side this season. The prop has appeared in all 17 Betfred Super League
games and has made 1299 metres for the Giants, this is with an average gain of
7.14 metres per carry. He also works hard in defence, making 434 tackles so far
this year. The forward has also only made seven errors so far this year.
HIT! 💪@Giantsrl's @suaiaandfai lands a big one on Coote #NewBeginnings pic.twitter.com/qpE7OxDvNU
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) March 19, 2019