THE sight of Warrington Wolves players offloading the ball has become more and more common this year.

Indeed, The Wire are Super League’s top offloaders having completed 284 in their 17 matches so far – an average of just under 17 per game.

Of the 20 players in the competition who lead the offload charts, seven are Warrington players including the top two – Toby King leads the way with 42 ahead of Mike Cooper on 37.

“We certainly encourage our players to offload if the time and place is right,” head coach Steve Price said.

“Mike Cooper has been really effective for us in that area, as has Toby King.

“We like to play off the back of that – there is a time and place but we encourage it.”

King topping the charts certainly comes as no surprise to his left-edge teammate Ben Currie.

“That’s more just down to Toby,” he said.

“It’s not something we teach as such – he’s got the ability to do it and he’s not shy of showing it.

“It’s just something he likes to bring to the game and we know he can do it.

“We know that every time he carries the ball, we have to be ready for it.”

Anthony Gelling – eighth with 26 offloads – is in the top 10 while Stefan Ratchford (24), Ben Currie (20), Jason Clark and Daryl Clark (both 19) are The Wire’s other representatives in the top 20.

In 2019, Cooper was Warrington’s only representative in the top 20 overall – his 50 offloads was the fifth-most.

The Wire completed 340 offloads in 30 Super League and play-off matches last year – an average of 11.3 per match.