That's a pity as I was hoping to ask him if he knew the Pope's religion or where Bears defecate

I confess it was me but what I actually said was " it is known in sport that reporters cliche any article within their authorsphere." But I was misquoted. And the creation of two excellent neologisms was ignored, the verb to cliche, and authorsphere, which I think are excellent additions to the art of journalese.

and to answer AJW's awesome questions, the Popes religion is a mystery to me, and goldilocks didn't get as far as that so I never found out.

Seriously now, the number of trite blatant mouthpiece articles in the TnA has reduced substantially, helped by having something good on the pitch to write about.

Preview now on Nothing But League - bit.ly/1M8L2gd

Preview now on Nothing But League - bit.ly/1M8L2gd

No Ulugia in the 19 man squad sent via e-mail from Bulls, but Williams is back. Assume injury, as Adam Henry is also in the 19, and you would think Ulugia's effort last week would have let him keep his spot.
Conroy the other one to drop out.

Squad for Sunday:

Henry, AoB, Sidlow, Mellor, Purtell, Williams, Ferguson, Fleming, Lauaki, Uaisele, Mullaney, Pitts, Baile, Gaskell, Walshaw, Clough, Shaw, Tahraoui, Olbison.

I suspect Jimmy will go with:

Shaw
Uaisele
Baile
Purtell
Williams
Gaskell
Mullaney
Clough
AoB
Sidlow
Pitts
Olbison
Mellor

Tahraoui
Lauaki
Ferguson
Walshaw

With Henry and Fleming missing out.
Personally I would be tempted to give either Clough or Sidlow a week off and give Fleming a run out, but that probably won't happen.

I don't think we will rest anyone until the CC in two weeks time when we could potentially be drawn against an amateur outfit.

I expect (and hope) Jimmy will rest the entire squad, put those who haven't played much in and play the U21's as well. I don't want to see one of our first choice players in that CC game. Give others a go to get match fitness for the eatser period, and throw in some U21's.

Rubbish. I want the Bulls to win the Cup, and am already looking forward to Wembley. Hic.

Ironically I reckon we've got a better chance this year than we've had for the last couple of seasons, Wembeerrrllllyyyyy here we come, all too easy




And to be serious for a mo, a decent cup run against 1 or 2 SL teams could maybe tell us more about where we are in competitive terms for the middle 8's.

I would put Fleming in for Lauaki, get both of them match fit and sharp before giving Clough or Sidlow a week off. If I were Jimmy I would be playing as many of my first 17 as possible to get them jelling then do a bit of rotating, so its tough on Ulugia after last week but the needs of the team come first.

Hunslet 19 man squad:

Jimmy Watson
James Duckworth
Jimmy Keinhorst
Danny Maun
Vinny Finnigan
Andy Kain
Simon Brown
Danny Ansell
James Houston
Jack Lee
Andy Yates
Callum Casey
Rob Mulhern
George Flanagan
Luke Briscoe
Liam Mackay
Brad Brennan
Aaron Lyons
Brett Delaney

This dual reg is getting a bit out of hand for me, could understand if they were short of numbers but they have a massive squad and are having to send a side to Hunslet Parkside amateur side to get a game! Wonder if its Leeds saying I want XYZ playing as whats the point in signing a massive squad to not play them so Leeds players can play. Conflict of interests if you ask me Eaton being on the Leeds staff too

It's largely to our advantage though.

One of the major factors we need over the early season is quality opponents and a bit of intensity. Running up big scores against poor sides won't help us one iota when this qualification bit is over and we have to play SL sides in the middle eights.

To be fair, I pretty much agree with the idea it makes a mockery of the league when it is taken to excess, as it appears to be here, but on the plus side we'll [hopefully get a better game and the team will get a much better work out. Personally, I'll take the plusses.

For me the issue isn't that the players are on loan to play against the Bulls, its the fact that the league is being used as a training ground.

Is the Championship a league in its own right or is it there to train players for SL teams. If it is the latter why not just have a SL reserve division and scrap promotion / relegation.

Another point which I don't really know is how the finances work out for loan players. If the recipient club is paying the salary of the player then this enhances the salary cap for the club loaning the player. I though that amongst other things the salary cap is there to create a level playing field with all clubs able to spend up to the same sum on salaries to make the league competitive.

I thought the maximum number of dual-reg players was five?

think its five loan players. not sure if that includes dual reg ones or not.

It's 4 dual reg and 1 loan. (Or combinations thereof. Not 5 dual reg, but I think 3 dual and 2 loan would be ok for example).

But Hunslet have got around it by "permanently" signing Luke Briscoe and James Duckworth. They have supposedly joined Hunslet on contracts, and have left Leeds. But if they're any good, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see them leave Hunslet and re-join Leeds on new permanent deals at the end of this season.
In the meantime, it allows them to play those two, as well as 4 more dual reg and 1 loan from Leeds.

Warrington did the same with Swinton a couple of seasons ago where a load of young Wire players joined Swinton permanently. And yet somehow still managed to get named in Wire's 19 occasionally. When quizzed about it, Wire said they'd taken them on loan from Swinton.

Doncaster were also quizzed this season about why they had 5 Dual Reg Hull players in the team. They then clarified by saying that Stuart Howarth was on a loan, not dual reg, so it was ok.

All a bit ridiculous.

It's like SL teams having a Reserve grade team at Championship level? A glaring addmission by Leeds was Delaney who would be allowed to rehabilitate after his surgery by playing for Hunslet, whilst obviously taking the place of a bona fide Hunslet forward!
It's a disgraceful situation brought about by the mishandling of our sport by the powers that be, (mentioning no names).

A lot of these problems have surfaced due to cutting SL teams to 12, with an obvious shrinkage, which has caused the surfeit of young talent being unable to play in the top flight, whilst ultimately doing the Championship a diservice when the developing talent in their ranks are sidelined by some of the proven players from SL.
An anology would be like say, Morrisons closing a couple of their Supermarkets to make their customers spend more, rather than attracting new customers by improving their services and the value to attract those customers???? You never can sell more by offering less.

:4uww2ecz

I suppose it's fairly difficult for the RFL if two clubs [i:4uww2eczdeliberately[/i and the Championship club gains someone they can't really afford. If the SL club has genuinely 'parted company' with the player one does have to wonder who is paying therm.

Problem surfaced before SL was cut to 12. The promising Warrington youngsters that Swinton had on DR a few seasons ago were called Briers and Morley!

Looks like we're going to have a big screen set up at Odsal today on the closed Rooley Lane terracing.

Decent win in the end. Thought we could have had more had we been more clinical. Hunslet barely got in our half but never gave up. I thought they competed better in the second half.

O'Brien's try from halfway was the standout for me, excellent. I though Shaw looked good apart from the missed tackle for the Hunslet try. Up front we dominated. Should be tougher at Batley next week.

Jimmy will probably be annoyed we conceded a try, but at least it came from a breakaway rather than them actually breaking down a set defensive line. Some great work by Williams and Pitts to stop the initial break too.
Hopefully the injuries to Purtell and Mellor aren't too serious. Same for Uaisele too, although I'm not 100% sure of the reason for him dropping out.

Solid win for us, a very professional job. As the weeks go by I'm more impressed with the job Tahroui does. Sidlow and Clough play long minutes but Tahroui is starting to offer longer stints too. I thought he'd be more of an impact prop but he puts in a lot of work too.

We did seem to take our foot off the gas in the 2nd half and it took Hunslet scoring their try to shake us out of our apathy.

But we are looking a more cohesive unit each week, but we still need to work on our focus and put out a complete 80 minute performance.

Mellor didn't look too good at all. On crutches and wearing a boot at the end. Shame. He's look v good so far.

Purtell just looked like he had tight hamstrings. He seemed to be walking freely at the end.

I agree about Samir. He's really coming on.