Assuming tommy starts at scrum half and micky mac at hooker i dont think we can afford to wait the 56 mins we waited last week before switching tommy to 9.

Our attack was miles better when tommy moved to 9 and finch to 7.

Tonight i would play the first 25 mins with micky at 9 then take him off and let tommy play. The second option would be to play tommy at 9 from the off and bring mellor in .

The third option would be lockers to 6 and tommy at 9 with hanson at 13 and eric in 2nd row.

I8 like option 3 better than option 2 as tommy is a better 9 rather than a 7.

Hock & Gelling to centre
MM to second row
Tommy to hooker
Finch to 7
Sam to 6
Amos to 1
Goulding to Widnes

Just a minor change to the team then

I fail to see how our attack was miles better with Tommy at hooker. We only scored one try with him in that position and that was a barge over from Lockers.

We tend to be quicker round the ruck with Leuluai at hooker though, whereas with McIlorum the pace is very sluggish. You rarely see teams doing well these days without a quick ruck. It's how Saints got on top against Salford, it's how Wire were so successful last season, it's why Burrow has been so effective at hooker for Leeds.
If the pace isn't quick then the hooker has to be creative. McIlorum isn't. His distribution isn't great, his decision making hasn't been good and his individual attacking input is poor.

He can read the game pretty well in defence though, despite the mistake for Gilmour's try last week. He's got something to offer but his attacking play leaves a lot to be desired.

Hopefully he'll get that aspect of his game sorted this season though. There's still time and when playing for the academy he used to have some good attacking performances. It is painfully obvious that on most occasions in the past he's had little effect when attacking.

as a mcilorum basher, id like to say he had a cracker tonight. keep it up.

Me too.. I thought Goulding was very good also.

He did - he'd have been my MoM tonight if not for Josh's outstanding performance.

agreed

Excellent performance from McIlorum. I criticise him when things go badly so it's only right to praise him when he does well. He played with a bit more aggression and it seemed to benefit him. He was quicker around the ruck and his defence was absolutely outstanding.
We do need to use Leuluai at hooker though as we needed to change things around once McIlorum tired and things got a little too predictable but he played most of the game and was probably our second best player after Charnley.

good game from both McIlorum & Goulding, thought the hole team played very well, even Hock

had a great game today and its only fair he gets the plaudits he deserves... defensively he was a hard hitter, played with lots of aggression and going forward he mixed it up a bit too.

are you sure your feeling ok BBB..

i do agree

credit where it is due, though we still do need a creative hooker

The solution is somebody needs to punch Micky before the match. He was awesome after that confrontation, he smashed everything that moved



P.S Baggsy not me doing it

McIllorum seems to be getting a lot of praise on here this morning, and so he should. Truth is he performed exactly the same as that in the first half of the Huddersfield game. He blatently got the rough end of the stick by a lot of fans looking for someone to blame for our lack of ideas in attack, and him being asked to do a very long stint.

He's a completely different style of hooker to Tommy, but we would certainly miss him if he is was not there. No other player at the club has the engine to work like he does, in one of the most demanding positions on the park.

The key is to manage both hookers appropriately depending on the opposition.

He didn't. He played much better last night. He still wasn't deadly in attack but the pack was much more physical and ran the ball in harder. He made errors defensively against Huddersfield whereas against Leeds he was spot on every time.

He saved our bacon quite a few times last night with last ditch tackles. I might criticize Macca's attacking ability but I'd never question his defensive ability. Last week was just an all round lax effort from all involved.

Trust me he was. At half time I actually said to the guys next to me he was world class. Maybe a bit OTT, but it seems when the half-backs and outside backs don't take advantage of the work he puts in to get us on the front foot we blame him.

I bet a lot of people forget that last week we dominated the giants territorially for much of the first half. MM had a massive hand in that. Just a shame we can't watch it back, or access his stats.

His defence dropping off clearly stems from the end of his long stint when he was blowing up. He even made the odd error like that last night, arounf the time Leeds scored, but we had run him into the ground.

He wasn't. The team needed more than McIlorum could offer against Huddersfield. That was partly down to the fact that the whole team was playing pretty badly but if you're playing in the most influential position on the field you need to play consistently well in both attack and defence. Against Huddersfield the pace around the ruck wasn't there while it was when Leuluai moved to hooker.

More often than not in the past McIlorum's impact on the team going forward hasn't been enough. Against Leeds he was far more lively and was playing with more aggression.

Micky Mac has a new fan after last night. Even though my missus has been coming to matches on and off for a couple of years she last night 'realised' that MM was a deadspit for an actor called Channing Tatum (GI Joe).

Next week I'd go:

FB 1 Sam
RW 2 Charnley
RC 3 Goulding
LC 26 Hughes
LW 5 Richards
SO 6 Finch
SH 7 Leuluai
P 21 Lauaki
H 9 McIlorum
P 10 Mossop
SR 11 Hansen
SR 16 Farrell
LF 13 O'Loughlin

S 12 Hock
S 14 Lima
S 23 Flower
S 27 Russell

I'd like to see how we would go with Russell at full back and Sam in the halves, give it a go once the game has settled down a bit.

next week i'd go with the same team that beat Leeds it's not rocket science

Farrell will come back in I'd have thought.