Cas were playing Salford. - bottom 4 side.

We were playing Catalans - possible Grand Final contenders. And top 4 in league.

Massive difference. Plus Diskin/Stranger made more metres against a top 4 team than Milner/Clark did against bottom 4.

i would go with bk, ainy,purtell, lulia if fit walker if not, kear, sammut,gale, koppy, disco, joseph, whitehead, donno,langley, on bench would be scruton,heath, burgess and walker/pryce dependant on availability.

Is Whitehead definitely available?

Kearney (tempted to leave him out, but deserves another chance)
Crookes
Lulia
Purtell
Kear
Sammut
Gale
Kopzcak
Diskin
Hargreaves
Walker
Langley
Donno

L'Estrange
Burgess
Scruton/Joseph
Whitehead/Sibbit

yes his suspension is now over

That should help us out. We are missing Elima more though

Kearney
Kear
Lulia (if fit, otherwise Walker)
Purtell
Pryce (if fit, otherwise Ainscough)
Sammut
Gale
Kopzcak
L'Estrange
Scruton
Bateman (if fit, otherwise Addy)
Whitehead
Langley

Diskin
Donaldson
Joseph
Burgess

Kearney needs to become cemented in at FB

Kear and Pryce on the face of it look like 2 decent wingers, though Ainscough hasn't done much wrong and I wouldn't argue if he got a shot.
Purtell and Lulia will surely play centres all year whenever fit.

Sammut and Gale looks to me head and shoulders our best prospect of becoming a halfback combination. It may take time for them to gel and it wouldn't half help if they could play behind an actual pack, rather than powder puffs, but I wish Potter picks a combination and then sticks with it. All the best teams I have ever known have a definite and permanent starting halfback pairing.

Props - Kopczak is a shoo-in, Scruton is one of our few big lads, and we simply have to persist with him and get him up to speed. We absolutely should not drop him unless the task becomes impossible.

L'Estrange should start, and if he gets back to anything like, he will again be one of our top players and best attacking and organisational threats. Especially with Diskin on the bench to spell him.

Bateman and Whitehead looks a potential class young second row pairing. Doubt if Bateman can be fit but we live in hope.

I'd play Langley from the start as we may need some serious tackling and he provides that, and a bit of weight and muscle. I'd definitely start giving joseph a shot off the bench, the sort of visible enthusiasm he seems to have is in short supply for much of the game with us. Burgess and Donaldson, especially Burgess, contain true class, potentially, and as we are short of size, I hope to see Burgess fit enough to do reasonable length spells to share the workload. Him, Scruton, Kopczak and to some extent Langley should be able to win their share of collisions. It will make a helluva big difference us to have M'fuka and Elima available though.

Whats Crookes done wrong?

We have Thaler, who is imo the best SL referee.

Kearney
Kear
Purtell
Lulia (if fit, Pryce if not, Walker last resort)
Crookes
Sammut
Gale
Kopczak
Diskin
Hargreaves
Walker
Whitehead
Langley

Scruton
Joseph
Burgess
L'Estrange

I'd go with 5 props in an attempt to win the collision. Nothing against Donno but we need more size.

They should be used to it then.

Thaler is ok, Ganson is the best by a country mile though.

After last week, some Wire fans might disagree with you there.

Sykes
Pryce/Ainscough
Purtell
Lulia/Platt
kear
Kearney
Gale
Kopczak
L'estrange
Joseph
Hargreaves
Whitehead
Langley

Walker
Sammut
Scrutton
Diskin

Because he could have passed out side to Kear on a numbe of occasions but didn't. Maybe he wasn't comfortablet passing from left to right. I did think he looked strong though and tackled hard. Looks very dangerous attacking ahigh kick, hopefully we can utilise this unlie last year with Ah Van. One if the best wingers attacking a high kick to the corner and we never used it



I don;t tihnk Purtell is a natural centre and this will become clear when Lulia starts playing. It's been so long since we've had a proper centre we've forgotton what one looks like. Nero, Sykes, Platt, Whitehead.

Kearney needs dropping.

How can we drop him? He's reet proper bo remember. I totally agree with you, his defensive play is utterly bab. Thing that makes me laugh is people having a dig at Sykes when they think this guy is the next messiah.

Defnsively he's not the strongest. Although we could have Radlinski at full back and it wouldn't make much difference with our defence. If a you have a player who has walked through the defence with ease, has support either side of him and we don't have a player in side, it's difficult to defende against. Defensively Kearneys not great. But dropping him would be stupid. The guy scored some superb tries last year, Saints, Cas anyone? Not many players in the team can do that. The other 12 players need to learn how to tackle infront of him

He's not even that great on attack, ball return is mediocre and rarley puts a play on. Kear is a much better FB.

Kearney couldn't tackle a hot dinner

Be realistic, Kearney isn't going to get dropped.

But he'll probably get an injury at some stage and I'd like to see Kear given a run at full back in that eventuality

1. Kearney
2. Purtell
3. Lulia
4. Walker
5. Kear
6. Sammut
7. Gale
8. Scruton
9. L'Estrange
10. Kopzac
11. Langley
12. Whitehead
13. Donaldson

14. Diskin
15. Hargreaves
16. Burgess
17. Joseph

And here lies half the problem. Complacency sets in because we have too many players who look like they know they are un-droppable:-

-Kearney
-Scruton
-Hargreaves
-Langley

THey are all senior members of the team who are driving the culture of the team / club

or we could go with.

1. Kear
2. Ainscough
3. Purtell
4. Lulia
5. Crookes
6. Kearney
7. Gale
8. Langley
9. L'Estrange
10. Kopczak
11. Whitehead
12. Donaldson
13. Addy

14. Diskin
15. Burgess
16. Joseph
17. Hargreaves/Scruton/Ball

BB2011 I realise that your final 17 is a bit tongue in cheek though Kear does look a more all round full back than Kearney, but is Ball ready? much as I would like to see him in action, if hes only going to play 15 minutes that would not be worth it from the teams perspective.

I know Ball probably isn't ready I put him in as a joke