So Riley and England are "great players" ?

Riley played 47 games for Wakey over two years (first year of that was a loan) and scored 18 tries - I'd hardly call him a great signing!

England too surely can only be considered average - 3rd best prop at Wakey i reckon?

Back on topic, I believe the League Express had a list of players by club who were now considered 'available', which excluded players who had already agreed contracts either with their current or another club. Which Wire players made the list? Was it just Prell, King & Johnson?

That list you mentioned it’s at the end of it,it says some people not on the out of contract list will not be at the club’s next season.

Ignoring Hughes as a pure first choice second rower (and Currie through injury), our prop/sr/loose/interchange forwards looks like:

Cooper
Hill
Westwood
Livett
BMM
Philbin
Sita
Crosby
G King

I would probably place King at the bottom of the pecking order. He's a steady player, and doesn't do much wrong. He's more useful to have than not have, but we're now blessed with our best depth of quality pack for a long time. I wouldn't necessarily want to see him leave, but for his own growth and guaranteed game time, a move away might be best for him.

REally dropped out of the rotation hasn't he, mind Philbin (who i thought was too short) is playing well about his size lately.

We might need a couple more to join them to keep this squad together for next season and beyond with the odd addition.
Love us to have another go at netting Tompkins myself.

Sam confirmed to Catalans on a initial 3 year deal. I wouldn't touch Joel with yours!!

Harrison & Penny? Wakefield was the end of the line for most Warrington rejects.

...and the beginning for others.

As a slight aside, has anyone else been heavily miffed by the tone of the reporting of the Toronto game?

It's almost been portrayed that we were culpable in the game descending into farce and a non-event, that all of our quality was a direct result of the numeric disadvantage as opposed to any show of skill and that we dodged a bullet thanks to their indiscipline.

Really unfair in my view, you can only play what's in front of you after all.

Yes MIAW the response has baffled and annoyed me. Despite obviously being wire biased ive no idea what we did wrong in that game. It seems we'd have had to have won by 100 and not celebrate any of our tries.....some real anti-wire feeling out there at the minute which means we must be doing something right.

We wernt supposed to beat them, they had a chance to show the rugby league world how they have progressed to SL contenders and blew it big time. We heard the usual classless response from Rowley how they are the victim's, this performance doesn't help them build a support base over in Canada. Everything about them on Sunday was poor.

They put all of their eggs in one basket for the game. It was disrupt as much as possible, close down as soon as they could when we had the ball and then slow the game down as much as possible to recuperate.

It worked for 30 odd minutes. It then turned into a penaltyathon and when they were completely knackered they shipped in points. Being down to 11 men at times was completely down to them and nothing to do with the referee. Thaler had no choice but to punish their constant flagrance of the rules. I am sure even with 13 against 13, the second half would still have been one sided.

As has been mentioned before, we do not come out of the game with to much credit from the Beebs pundits and other supporters. Guess what, not bothered. They can say what they want. Lets just worry about what we are doing as a club, keep the Ws coming in the win/loss column and let everyone else worry about us.

Really agree with this. There is some absolute nonsense going around on the boards and the bull directed at us seems to have coincided with our improvement (Cue some bell coming on here to say we're getting cocky/arrogant or words to that effect).

I am sure Paul Rowley has been explaining the poor discipline to the owners and the fact that they embarrassed themselves and the club on national TV.

If Thaler has stopped the clock everytime Toronto delayed forming a scrum it would have been dark by the time the game finished.

I think you are completely mis-reading that. I was one of those who ranted about the refeereeing in the game, but none of that was anything to do with Warrington really. I was looking forward to a good game of rugby, enjoyed the first half hour and fully expected them to tire and Wire to win by 20 ish second half. Then for me the ref had a major paddy and destroyed one of the two teams. Toronto didn't react well to that by any means, but they were justified in feeling hard done to initially. The red in particular was the softest card I've ever seen. If that happened to a Wire player in a big game, you wouldn't be happy, it was nothing. Up to the incident under the sticks it was a niggly encounter and Warrington were as bad as Toronto with the hair pulling on Kaye and Simms and the constant sledging. Thaler then just gave everything against Toronto as if it had been all them. Like when a ref in juniors gets annoyed with a team and refs them and coaches the other team.

Warrington are on a good run and I said at the start of the season on here that you'd be in the top 4 and challenging. But some of your fans are the emotional types who wanted Price out after 5 games, but who are now suggesting the treble is a formality. We've been here before, same as most seasons since Moran arrived. Warrington fans do get very arrogant and smug when you sniff a chance of glory, perhaps understandable and similar to Cas last year. I've heard some pearlers this week on here and Twitter. Saints being so bad that Barba is the only reason we're top 8, SL is already over, you'll go the rest of the season unbeaten and a Wigan/Warrington final an inevitability. It's all good though, makes SL a more exciting competition.

This is true. I wince at comments on here saying Saints are "one trick ponies" and that we should expect to beat Wigan 5/5 times this season.

Most Wire fans are not like that. They will recognise we have improved but not been severely tested in this 10 match run other than Cas and Leeds. We will find out a lot more over the coming 5 games.

Those comments are down to ONE poster though, not seen any such comments from others. I like where we are at the minute, just nicely positioned. Saints are not one trick ponies and are rightly favourites - saying that i find Saddened's comments a bit rich as i find the scousers by far the most arrogant fans completely lacking in magnanimity as well. (they still harp on about the 2016 semi where they were deservedly beaten).

You talk about hair pulling and sledging, did you see or hear any of that? You might as well throw in biting as well as the Toronto players claimed that! If you did hear or see any of that then you're a better man than me as I've watched it back twice now and caught none of that.

Sin-binning and sending off were both a little harsh I agree but by the laws correct. The McCrone sin-binning fully justified. You know full well how Rowley sets his teams up and it's churlish anti-wire rubbish to suggest we were the architects of that game's ill-discipline.

The main culprit for this 'wire arrogant fans think they are gonna win everything' is the repulsive Eddie Hemmings. For the last 5-10 years he has constantly broadcast the lie to the RL masses that everybody in Warrington expects the treble this year.

Goodness me. My name is Morrissey, I'm addicted to Wires and Lidl yoghurt and twas me that dared call Saints a one-trick pony.

Fact is, Saints worst performances or defeats (Leeds away.and Catalan at home) have coincided with Barba being out or nullified as much as poss.

Without him, Saints rely on Lomax, Farges and Matty Smith for inspiration which hardly inspires the same levels of confidence.

Barba is not only an exceptional player but his presence lifts the confidence and belief of the team, something the players themselves freely admit to. Saints know that without him a huge chunk of their potency is gone so they play to his strengths, and who wouldn't? It isn't clever coaching or gameplans because no-one at Saints could fulfill that role.

I’m afraid Saddened poisoned the well a long time ago, he clearly fears any suggestion of a resurgent Wire and all his posts should be viewed through that prism.

Saints have 3 players in the top 10 try scoring charts.
Saints have 2 forwards in the top 10 yardage. (The only other forward is Hill)
Barba is behind Myler for Try assists.
Saints concede less than 12 pts per game.

I don't think it's accurate to call them "one trick", just as it wasn't right to call Wire that when we had Sandow.






Luke Thompson is the highest yardage forward in SL.

Sorry W71
I think they are but I'm not using stats to argue against my eyes. They've played nobody since early season but a busted Cas in the cup. Stats aren't a fair reflection until the season is balanced and all the results are there for comparison.
I've said it several times...Saints run in to rnd 23 is tough. Let's reflect stats after rnd 23. Even then it's not completely balanced because Saints have a Magic gimme.

What on Earth are you on about, we’ve played every team in SL? You say ‘let’s reflect stats after rnd 23’ because you hope that Saints lose to Wire and Wigan (we’ll definitely beat Warrington) and it knocks us down. We’ve both played 15 games, stats are a fair reflection, you just don’t want them to be because they don’t suit.