Warrington Wolves prop's lung-busting 80-minute effort in numbers
The Australian forward put in a lung-bursting effort to try and get his side home at Leigh Sports Village and he more than did his bit, but unfortunately The Wire saw the lead they had carefully built blown away inside the final 15 minutes.
Nevertheless, Yates can reflect on an excellent individual display that personified the kind of player he is – effort-based and team-first.
He played the full 80 minutes in the middle – an impressive feat whatever the circumstances – after Ben Currie's forced move into the centres disrupted Wire's rotation, and put up some impressive numbers in being named as Sky Sports' player of the match.
In making 43 tackles, he was the leading hit-maker on either side but that defensive effort contained only one missed tackle.
Luke Yates tackles Leigh's Keanan Brand (Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com) With the ball too, he made 121 metres from 17 carries as he was front-and-centre of an impressive effort from a Warrington pack that has come in for criticism aplenty this year.
Often slammed for lacking punch and go-forward, that was not an issue at Leigh Sports Village with Paul Vaughan besting his colleague's tally by racking up 138m from 18 carries.
They matched a more vaunted Leigh pack in what was something of a war of attrition through the middle – Leigh's big men averaged 7.73m per carry, Wire's figure was 7.11m – but it was the Leopards' outside-backs that the visitors struggled to keep a lid on.
Paul Vaughan also put in an impressive front-row shift, making 138m with the ball (Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com) Combined, Leigh's back five made 696m – full-back Bailey Hodgson led the way with 240m – at an average of 9.16m per carry, with five clean breaks between them.
Tesi Niu (171m) and Josh Charnley (138) had particular joy against Wire's right edge which had lost Connor Wrench to injury in the early stages.
Having said that, Wire's figures were not too dissimilar – their outside-backs made 547 between them, with Currie's figures included given he spent most of the game at centre, at an average of 8.54m per carry.
However, the only clean break they managed between them was Josh Thewlis' incredible run to set up Matt Dufty's try, which formed the bulk of his 160m gained. Dufty (132m) was the other Wire player to reach three figures.
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