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Backbone problem.

At the moment the team are working hard for each other....See 2nd half on friday night....Eastmond can only be seen as a disruptive influence and would therfore in my opinion have no right even being considered for such a critical game.

ANyone any idea how sales for the Saints end are going for this game.

Wigan are down to the last 700. with a fair few single seats left. No idea what our travelling band is looking like.

It'll be 2500-3000 i would guess, hopefully more.
Do our bit for the biggest derby in RL.

I wouldn't be overly surprised to see him in the team at some point, especially if we keep going the way we are going with injuries but I'm not entirely sure we are at that point at present, unless Meli is not yet fit, in which case we would be short of a centre. I'd suggest Makinson but I think a derby is not the kind of game in which to play your full debut!

I know that a fair few of Saints fans have bought their tickets from Wigan.

Devious.

As for predictions, I'll go
Saints 18 - 16 Wigan
23500 or whatever capacity is permitted
Mom Roby


and me to have a very sore head on saturday

It will be more than that, we'd sold over 3,000 last Thursday (based on what was left given Wigan sales & unreserved capacity)

As to selling out, that is going to be down to the currently undecided...

Watched the highlights of last years game at the DW, it got the hairs up on the neck when Gidley puts Foster in, it also shows how useful Pryce is - hope he comes back playing like he was last year!

His try from the scrum was fantastic to watch. That game was on my birthday; what a great present!

Think there will only be 6 points in it, if we keep our attack going like the last 3 games we should win it. Got a feeling Eastmond will be on the bench (won't start) with Wheeler at 6 if Meli is fit. LMS, Roby and Big Tony are on form so these should give the Wigoons a good test in the front row.
Wigoons are struggling to score points lets hope it continues, like to see Sia put a massive hit on Mr S Tomkins and hopefully Lima will be a penalty machine.

Lima is on report for another third man tackle on the legs, this time after the hooter had gone, so i doubt he'll play!

That knocks a leg off the table then, thats a shame eh!

Now then, let's get onto the more important subject....

Where's everyone drinking pre-match?

Hope you two knock ten bells out of each other, seriously.
Dont forget the mighty Cas!! are in town on monday!!.

Don't you have a little derby of your own to sort out first.

Who? never heard of em!!

I can actually see us losing to Cas more than losing to Wigan. All the players will be up for the Wigan game and I expect it to be a right ding dong. But Cas , well I think they will stroll it against Wakey and be ready to go on Monday.

If we pick up anymore injuries it could be the under 18's v cas on Monday. I would expect Eastmond to play cas though, Can't see Simmons risking Lomax in back to back games with the rest of the season to come.

A true believer, couldn't have put it better myself

From a Wigan point of view, this is the game of the season! Glad to have a good Friday game at home for a change.

I'll stick my neck out and say Wigan by 12. This IMO will be the game that gets our season going.....hopefully!

I'm kind of relieved you managed to beat HKR last weekend - I'd be extremely weary of the wounded beast if you were going into the derby on the back of a losing run.

If we can get 2 of Jammer, Perry and Clough on the squad, then I'll be happy, although I'm worried about our lack of long kicking without Gaskell - look out for Roby taking sme of that responsibiilty and kicking out of dummy half.

Its a strange one for me. We've been playing very well, but I can't have faith that we'll be able to sustain our high level against one of the top teams until I see it. I can imagine it going a few different ways on Friday.

Exactly my thoughts - we haven't beaten any of the other teams in the top 5 yet.

A good run against some pretty dismal teams doesn't have me thinking we're ready to turn over the big boys given our injuries/absences in key positions.

I think we'll lose by 6-10 points on Friday unfortunately, but we certainly have a decent chance of grabbing the points.

We ain't the team from last year...yet, we gave shown glimpses here and there. I worry about our home form, we seem to perform better when it's backs against the wall type games. I can see now that Maguire has announced that he's going we may get that attitude of 'Do it for madge' which may get us up for all games.....again hopefully

To be honest, I think the way that players like Soliola (especially), Moore and McGennis have been supporting our props, we have the potential of really taking it to them up the middle. The last 3 games have seen us dominate physically, so we need to at least get the upper hand in the rough and tumble.
I'll hope for Meli to come back and slot into the centre position. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Makinson in the future, but for this match, Meli's physical presence would be a welcome sight.

Our completion rate has been very good of late, so that should help us immensely, but the lack of long kicking worries me - perhaps the extra practice the lads will have this week will help.

However, if Wigan do pull their together, their experience as a team should pull them through against our rag-tag bunch of kids. I'd suggest from a neutral point of veiw that home advantage should tip the odds to Wigan.