Lam didn’t give much away on Wigan TV saying he’ll be on the bench and could come in at stand off, full back or on the wing.

I played 7 years of American Football and was lucky to come away with only 2 concussions. In a way you think of the Helmet as a weapon, so you think nothing of slamming it into someone else, forgetting that it's meant to be keeping your face a bit more intact. The foam padding on the inside is less than an inch thick in most places and is more for comfort of general wearing & making sure it doesn't fly off than protecting you.

Think this is a potential banana skin particularly considering the weather forecast - storms due all day.

There have been a number of scientific studies done in scrum caps and whilst there is some disagreement most of the evidence points towards them having no affect or actually increasing the chances of concussion.

The mechanics of concussion as above are related to the effects of the brain hitting the inside of the skull.

Scrum caps increase the size of the impact zone and also give the wearer more confidence which can lead to increase in numbers of concussion.

Scrum caps do without doubt reduce the potential for cuts but not concussions it is generally agreed.

The best way would be to look at the mechanics of his run and impact, and look for improving technique.

He is a tall rangey player which will mean he will have larger areas exposed and to work on.

From a purely firm point of view though Isa and Faz need to be starting secondrows.

Greenwood had a great start to his Wigan career, however I’ve not been too impressed for much of his time at Wigan thus far.

Yeah your right.
Additionally it's now been proven that brain damage isn't just from concussions but from any 'reasonable' head trauma, think a jab to the head which snaps the head back as opposed to previous thinking that only a KO or partial KO would lead to a concussion.

CTE is something still relatively new in terms of finding out how many damage is actually done. As you'll probably know as a NFL fan and former American Football player, the NFL do what they can to protect their name and brand and don't want any medical reports which highlights the serious issues with the game. (Will Smith made a film about the Dr who fought the NFL for such reports to be visible to the outside world.

CTE has led to psychosis and other mental issues, all from head trauma. I think in years to come we'll truly see how bad contact sports have been on the brain; this very much includes RL.

I'd see if Burgess shows any improvement otherwise French on for Budgie

Win's a win but I thought that was pretty awful, good job KR butchered those first half chances or it could have been a very different story.

STORY OF OUR SEASON PAL WIN ONE LOSE ONE

How ironic that the gamechanger came off two ridiculously forward passes for the Burgess try (who was having another below par game up until that point).

I thought Marshall was tremendous tonight.

I had other rugby commitments today. Where did French play when he came on, and how did he look?

Wasn't on long, 15-20 mins. Came on the wing for Burgess.

Did okay, took the ball in dummy half a couple of times and made decent yards. Did a little run-around with Williams.

His best piece was a half break where he chipped the ball inside ended up coming to nothing but was enterprising.

Made one tackle I think. Like I said did okay.

Marshall absolutely superb. Playing out of his skin and has done for weeks.

A lot smaller than burgess, probs on half his wage but double the size of his heart.

Burgess bang out of form and looks disinterested, French to start next week.

Cheers, appreciated.

God knows how those passes were missed after all the ones that were spotted.
Re. Burgess and Marshall, I thought Burgess played like he was expecting to get hooked off while Marshall played like he desperately didn't want to get subbed.
I really hope Burgess can rediscover his spark but he looks miles off the pace at the moment.

He had a brainstorm at that moment, thinking he was back at Paramatta and that all the flyers were going to come charging through. But then he realised that he was at Wigan, where most of the strikers were still in bed.

Is it just me or do we still look a million miles off?
Do we still look flat in attack for large spells of the game?
Do we still have lapses in defence and let in tries which we shouldn't if we're going to challenge for a run at the GF?

Have we still only had one 80 minute performance all season? v Cats?

I was hoping with the buzz around the club with the new signings and the break post CC would see a reinvigorated side come back and really start to click. 2 games back and we still don't look anywhere close to being a contender.

I actually think Wire, with all their issues and missing players will turn us over next week.

I agree with all of that.
I'm just relieved that we are safe and a playoff place will be an unexpected bonus to effectively a transitional season.

Apart from a lack of top class props we over rely on TL defensive qualities at the expense of an attacking option in the halfs. It's obvious Lam doesn't rate Sammut so we are stuck with 2 halfs who don't complement each other and a poor kicking game.

I desparately want to beat wire next week but unless we significantly improve our attack then we will probably fail again against a top 2 side.

Areas where we seem to be struggling still is possession in the opposition twenty. It's dire at times with a little bit of clueless thrown in.

Fifth and last. Tommy's aimless bombs are just awful. A good kick and chase to the corner with the ball finding the floor is basic stuff but we might as well at times just hand the ball over.

Any coincidence that our relapse in performances at the same time Sammut isn't getting a look in again?

Sammut needs be our 7 if we're to have a chance, we're a much better team with him in the side.
Powell and Leuluai can fight it out for the no.9 shirt.

What happened to Sarginson

Lam said he had a couple of niggly injuries.

I’d still say our biggest issue is ill-discipline and silly errors. When we have the ball, I always feel there are scores in us but we give up far too much possession. High shots, off side, not square, forward passes, basic knock ins are all impacting on the amount of possession we have. If we cut all that out and made teams defend more, they’d tire and we’d run rings around them.

Away on holiday at the moment and missed this game. Another good result in the bag. Next weeks game v Warrington is crucial, if we have realistic hopes of finishing 2nd. I’d be happy with 4th to be honest given the beginning to mid season, so to finish 2nd would be some achievement IMO.

2nd would be fantastic but realistically there isn’t a great deal of difference between 2nd and 3rd. I do think getting in the top 3 is important though, as there is a massive difference between 3rd and 4th.

It’s amazing to be able to get a bit greedy considering when we played HKR away a couple of months back it felt like a relegation battle.

I think we are ill-disciplined. But I think it's also more than that, like my original post, I see a team lost in attack for large portions of the game, we are also still leaking soft tries.
Overall I can only think of one 80 minute performance all season. I think our general play has decreased significantly this season compared to last. The acid test for me is Wire. It's the perfect game at the perfect 'level' to see where we're at.

Wire are depleted and have a cup final to think about, if we can't beat them this coming week; it's not looking good.