Pre-match, I think most of us were thinking along the lines of 'What a shame, the team is finally starting to gel and now we have to start from square one with a totally different starting 17'. Not sure how the 'team ethic' transferred so seamlessly to last night's 17 but it did. It's the sort of thing we 'expect' from Saints, probably Wigan and even Leeds a few years ago, that they can plug in three or four ( or even more ) fringe and junior players into the side when injury or suspensions take regulars out, and still look like the same team on the park. A long way to go before we can permanently say the same for Wire, but let's enjoy last night for what it was, quite outstanding.

I must admit I was not thinking quite the same as that. I was thinking 'what a pity that the team had done well to get themselves in a top 4 position, and then along comes Covid 19 and we lose 6 key players that is likely to result in two straight losses and scupper our chances'.

The ability to shuffle the team around and still gel was really impressive and second only to the level of determination and intensity that the players brought to the game. As you rightly point out, that has been a key characteristic of Wigan in the past and if we have picked up that trait it really bodes well for games and seasons to come.

Cas will be a bigger challenge methinks and although we will get BMS back, I think we will lose Clark. Also I hate to think what will happen when the results from next few days of Covid testing of the squad start to come in.

Why would we lose Clark? And I agree wouldn’t be too shocked if there were more cases materialising in our camp in the next few days.

Looking at our starting XIII, I was confident, but a great barometer of modern day team sports is the depth of a side's substitutes. Looking at ours, last night, and my confidence dipped a little.

No need.
They stood up to the challenge, and fair play to Price for sticking with Cooper and Ratchford until the game was well and truly won.

Onward to Cas.
Can you imagine Powell's list of post match excuses, if he would've been given the same set of circumstances. He'd've had a lone violinist next to him

I was impressed with the whole Squad, Leilani did a good job i thought and once he gets match fit after a couple more games him coming off the bench with Philbin i'm happy with.

Cooper was immense, Ratchford at 13 was immense, Mamo i love as a starting centre, Austin seems to have just found his love for the game again. Ellis Robson was impressive for me and i think we've messed up letting him go, but with the squad we have he won't get much game time.
Literally that was a great performance from us from the whole squad, i had us down to win but not like that


For Castleford next week, personally i'd keep the same squad in the positions they're in now but switch longstaff for BMM on the bench

Super performance, great defence and enthusiasm. What was not to like.

Thinking about ht last night I think curry and king in the second row made us a lot more dynamic. I like Hughes and jason Clark but they're a little one dimensional at times respecting the ball a bit too much. I think Kings future could be in the second row really or maybe at LF. I like him at centre but he makes a brilliant second row.

Also everyone just knuckled down last night and was totally focused on the job in hand, does hills griping with the ref put us on the back foot? Does it disrupt our flow and annoy referees in to penalising us? Thaler in particular seems to get wound up by him and we got a lot more out of him last night. Don't get me wrong I want Hill back in the team but please just knuckle down and do what Cooper did last night. In all fairness he has been recently but I much prefer to see the team focused like that. Absolutely magnificent last night. Price will have a lot of headaches in a few weeks.

I like the cut of your jib, sir, for those first couple of sentences. Hughes and Clark are too [ilow risk/NRL style players[/i.
Currie is back to his best.

His wife is due to have their daughter like...now. if Sita can have couple weeks off Daryl should be able to. I suspect Daryl will be very professional and have as little off as needed all being well that is.

From a Hull fan I just want to say well done, the club could have postponed but saw the bigger picture and Price had faith in his squad, which is alot better than ours as your fringe players stood up and bullied our pack. Good luck for the rest of the season.

Thanks Dave, very gracious. I as well as many others feared the worst when I saw our 17 but what a performance from our boys as you say.

Hope your new coach can sort you out, Hull is a great club and deserves better