Don't do that.

you'll be fine when you enter Gods county.

That's why I posted what I did.

Solution to hooker tonight

Burrow = no
Keinhorst = no
Stevie Ward = no
Sinfield = no
Robbie Ward = no

Cuthbertson = yes?

Hardaker
Briscoe
Watkins
Moon
Hall
Sinfield
McGuire
Garbutt
Cuthbertson
Peacock
S.Ward
Ablett
Singleton

Burrow
Keinhorst
Achurch
Leuluai

Didn't see that one coming

Cuthbo starting at hooker! He's played there for the knights under Wayne Bennett so guess should be capable.

Big starting pack. Presumably burrow will be off the bench to take over at 9 after 20mins.

It'll probably be a mixture of guys going into dummy half along with him, Sinfield, Hardaker, Ward perhaps. Will have definitely caught Wigan by surprise. They were probably licking their lips at Burrow being on and targeted him in the defence and our forwards having to do more defensive work without a hooker.

Now they're facing Peacock, Garbutt, Cuthbertson and Singleton right from the start all at once. That left field an idea it might turn out to be inspired. If Cuthbertson does do a chunk of dummy half work tonight and plays good then he's surely got to be nailed on for MOS.

he may be named there but sinfield will jump in more often than not

Probably, but defensively having all that beef in the middle looks much better than the "hide Burrow out wide and everyone move in one and get knackered" lineup.

Didn't Ablett get named at 9 in a game last year? Can't remember him jumping in there much though.Would imagine Sinfield will do it majority of time until Burrow comes on.I agree, its a bit left field but in a likely tight forward battle due to the conditions it looks a smart decision not to start Burrow.

Also think this is a team-sheet game, which will confuse Eddie and Stevo and nobody else. Imagine a Sinfield and maybe Ward doing most of the dummy-half work, with maybe a little bit of Cuthbertson.

Going to be tough for Wigan though to make metres. With the weather it makes it more a forwards-down-the-middle battle and Wigan don't have the biggest set of forwards and we're starting with 4 props effectively.

Ha! Good old McDermott.....he did it before with Clarkson (as I said earlier) and he's gone one better this time. As others have already stated though Cuthbo won't actually be going into dummy half. That'll be Sinfield mainly I guess.......

Hats off to the coach. If Leeds win this one he will indeed have my respect for his blind sider !!!

I'd imagine both starting second rows will operate in their usual channels. Sinfield in at dummy half, McGuire and Cuthbertson to play as pivots.

Expect a fair bit of kicking for position out of dummy half, or wide shifts on the last tackle. McGuire is going to be a sitting target for McIlorum and the rest of the Wigan pack otherwise as the only kicker.

Hmmm, looked a push to me.

tbh there were things in all 4 first half tries that they could have been disallowed for.

Our defence has been just excellent so far, Briscoe's error apart. Attack hasn't fired at all but still scored 20...

Been a scruffy and poor game so far, weather has really killed it.

Hope Achurch is ok but at the same time, but by god the guy lasted a minute on his latest comeback. Stevie Ward need to change his boots at HT. Silverwood has been really poor but we've benefitted this time and how many times does Bentham need to replay a try before deciding.

Think probably McGuire's try is the only one at should've stood. Hardaker's try saver on Sutton was top drawer and we went upfield to score to stretch the lead just before HT. What could've been a 14-10 HT score is instead a 20-4 score thanks to that moment from Zak.

Has anyone worked out who's playing stand-off yet? It seems to be....nobody.

We've been poor in this second half, very flat in attack, and gifted Wigan too much field position. We defended really well, but I never felt we got out of 2nd gear.
I thought Garbutt, Cuthbertson, McGuire and Sinfield were very good. We've got to play Sinfield at 9 for 80 minutes.

We've got a lot of improvement in us, but we had to grind that out and it was good to see we could win another way.

Nope, don't think anybody was. As much as it worked tonight I'm really worried about playing this format in future. The ball was kept to close to the ruck, when it went out it was obvious it had to go to McGuire.
Losing both Aiton & Sutcliffe could be a hammer blow.

What we did well tonight, what we don't usually do, is not get sucked in to Wigan's cheap shots (forearms into the tackled players face etc)


Also, how many times do a Wigan players - Liam Farrell being the worst - keep crawling forward, off the mark, when the tackles complete. Making it look like we're keeping hold of the tackled player?

Odd game. Defence very intense in first half, but we tired in the second. The scoreline seemed narrower than it should have. Not sure if there were injuries to Kylie and Burrow, but neither had more than 15 minutes. Add Achurch's injury and we were near enough playing with 14 men.

Ward's defence was really good, Cuthbertson a danger, Garbutt good all-round and Sinfield fine from dummy-half. Would probably have given McGuire m.o.m as he seemed to be playing both half-back positions at the same time, and did a pretty good job of it.

As much as I can see why you think Sinfield should be 9, as IMHO he's without doubt the 2nd best 9 at the club, we're to one dimensional when we only have one half on. Our whole successful style of play this year cannot be achieved.

I just don't see Robbie Ward getting much of a chance at this stage, so Sinfield is probably the only realistic option.

I agree.Burrow to renew his partnership with Mcguire in the halves for me with Sinfield at 9.The way we played tonight proved right in the conditions but we will quickly become predictable if we continue with it imo.

Exactly right. It'll be easy for opposing teams to prepare to face us.
My guess is Burrow will play a lot of game time at 9 in the CC Final.
Unfortunately it's going to be unavoidable as we have few options

Why on Earth don't you sit down for god sake ? But I bet you do really I know your wind up style by now.You sit down don't you ? A man of your age would never stand at the ginned end

A game of two halves as they say. We looked well on top in the first and looked second best in the second. It was an ugly win, but we hung in there and won. Shock of the night had to be Ull turning over Saints at home, a good night for Leeds