He’s been one of the very few positives of the recent run. He offers a great point of difference to our other back rowers and he could have a great career. He’s in a more fortunate position than the young props in that we should be able to get him out of the fire when needed, as Bateman, Isa, Smithies etc come back.

He’s looked a real athlete from his debut, confident and able to attract defenders and still get a safe pass away.

I just hope we can hold on to him, not sure what his contract with Wigan is but already you can imagine he will attract a lot of interest from other clubs when the time comes.

IIRC he signed for 4 years, so he’ll have a couple of seasons after this one. If he continues as he is though you’d imagine both he and the club will have reasons for wanting to extend that/negotiate it. I noted that he mentions his brother being at Saracens in his post match interview, so Union is always a worry but his skills seem really suited to league. I’m not massively in to Union but I can’t think of a position he really seems to fit in to.

Outstanding young prospect and turning out on his performances so far, to be a great signing by the club.
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He has took his chance and on present form should keep his place when the squad gets back to full strength.

Either at centre or loose forward as like Ashurst, Bell, Handley and O'Loughlin before him, he can play in the backs or forwards, can tackle, is a ball player and willing to take bigger players on and break the line.

I think he'd make a great centre in the Gene Miles mould. Maybe not blessed with pace but great hands and the ability to create space for his winger at will (and before anyone says it; I'm not comparing him to Miles except as a marker of style he could play). Plus the added advantage of natural size in the backs, something the Aussies seem to do far better than we do with our tendancy to push anyone of size into the back row. I'd love to see him given a run there.

Miles was fast though

I don't think KPP is slow. I wouldn't describe either as rocket heeled though.

ah true, Miles looks miles faster than KPP though, not seen him open his legs yet but doesnt seem to have much pace from what ive seen yet, If he does it would be great to have him there with a proper speedster outside him like we did with Miles

I loved Gene Miles proper class KPP reminds me of Barry John Mather with his ball handling abilities

I believe he has decent speed, particularly when he's in his stride, but I'm sure one of the regular A team watchers could give us a better idea. Over to you Rogues..

On a more general point though, I'm not sure pace, or lack of it, would be the be all and end all anyway. As you say, a speedy winger as a partner coupled with his ability to get the ball away could be devastating. I may be remembering through rose tinted glasses a little but I seem to remember a good amount of damage being done with Miles basically standing still, just by virtue of his ability to get his arms free and slip an accurate offload.

I dont remember Mather having good hands

hed get the ball away where noone else could, was fantastic at it

Obviously not to the level of Gene Miles but he wasn't the worst either

Is he carrying a knock, or is it just them the number of consecutive SL appearances, that have reduced his impact in recent games?

Total lack of service is the issue, nothing more.

Has he been told not to offload?

Wouldn’t be surprised if he was and still being selected to play. Lam has form for that.

Another to file under the ‘impossible to judge their form’ playing under this coach. An extremely promising start has been followed by a lad looking in need of a rest but young forwards don’t get rests here under Lam. Lam is that good a coach in his own mind that he goes against the usual grain of easing young forwards in, whilst being more bold with young backs and instead flogs young forwards to breaking point and refuses to give young backs a shot, instead preferring to play 3 or 4 players out of position to avoid it.

You only need to look at his handling of O'Neill...

Whilst Saints and possibly Leeds are better sides than Cas, you won't find a more hostile place to play than Cas away. I just can't fathom why he'd pick this game for him to come back, especially if he'd been previously dropped.

Tomorrow’s game is a terrifying prospect. We struggle at Cas at the best of times and we go in to it with Cas flying and us playing our worst rugby in 15 years. If we stay within 20-30 points of them we’ll have done ok.

Didn’t Hastings play on the right on Wednesday? So we can’t even blame Smith now.

If Cas get a good start I reckon we're heading for a Catalan away type result, could get very ugly

Wigan will win big at Cas

Are you a bookie?

I’ll have 3 pints of whatever you’re on.