I guess

Ratch
Charnley / Atkins / Goodwin / Lineham
Brown / Roberts
Hill / Clark / Cooper
Hughes / Currie
Westwood

Smith / Sita / Philbin / BMM

Is our strongest likely line up for the game, although he could well leave Atkins and Currie to come in at Cas and have the King bros in the 17 to leave us fresher for Cas - a risk possibly as Karetaker alludes, but a 17 without Currie & Atkins should still be good enough to handle Widnes..... shouldn't it?

I would love to see Sam play a blinder.

Id be very worried if Charnley is outside of Atkins......no chance hes getting a decent pass

Please no. It would spark that "why do we let go all these promising young players without giving them a chance" argument.

I think we are on fairly safe ground. He played 22 games for Wire and even a GF(!) and I can't recall one where he stood out. We have not missed him in the slightest. File him in the Paul Noone, Laithwaite, et al pile.

Might be in the minority here, but Laithwaite appeared to be progressing nicely prior to the terrible injury.

You're not. Laithwaite was. If you saw him now his filled out you'd wish he had stayed.

Agree with that,it was just bad timing when he got that injury he was doing well.

Sam wilde played very well in his debut against Wigan, that was an enjoyable game. I never rated laithwaite at all, very, very average. I don't think he would improve our squad at all.

Let's see how he gets on at Toronto.

Toronto.
He's doing okay and he loved it there. Great team spirit.

I agree although not a world beater, but, probably better than say G King (damned with feint praise)...the curse of the ginge.

I'm not saying that we should rush out and resign him btw but he was making his way in a pack that was losing Morley Carvell, Wood and although not a pack leader he never struck me as the worst player we've had up front

He can't be that old even now?

I don't understand why George King has taken up the scapegoat vacancy. For me he's a good solid forward reminiscent in many ways to Paul Wood.

I wasn't his biggest fan if i'm honest but recently he's starting to mature. I thought he did well against Catalan. He's a young lad and strikes me as a player who needs confidence. If/when we get a run together i think he's got a place in our squads, especially now our more established forwards are starting to perform as expected.

Fu is okay....he is certainly no worse than Cox or England when here.

If this is reference to my post, where have I scapegoated George King? I think that he is a squad player, but, thought that at the time of his injury Laithwaite was better, just my opinion of course.

As far as your reminiscences are concerned, here's another opinion, Wood is a much better player than George King currently

Anyway how weird is it going to feel going to an afternoon game.

He played against my team (Doncaster) for Toronto last season and looked like a Super League player. In fairness, many of the Toronto team last season were players with some Super League experience.

would g king get in wigans saints or leeds squad...answer no never so why do we have him...

George King is currently our 6th choice prop who can also cover second row and loose forward and has done alright for us when we have needed him. Its irrelevant if he would get in any other team as he probably wouldn't be in ours were it not for injuries/ suspensions.

Can anybody really name a better squad player in another team befitting the cover I just described? In the future if he is in the team as 3rd or 4th choice prop it will be because he has earnt it and taken his chances and worked hard to improve as a player. IMO He's improving, playing alright and I dont see why we need a scapegoat every season or for that case why this season it seems to be George King.

You say this but Leeds have had some trash in their squads, Ian kirke and Josh Walters for example

I agree Fu would get in at Leeds and at make the bench at Pies too.

Who the fu is Fu?

It was from a quote made by the previous Mayor.

It wasn’t funny then so why the hell RD keeps using it God only knows, so pathetic.

I also agree with CW8 about George....we always seem hell bent on putting our players down instead of backing them.

Atkins and G.King miss out today.

That's fare enough.
The joke has run its course.