I think you will as well but it won’t mean a great deal in the grand scheme of things.

It’s about time Wire started to produce academy players, this is a particular area where you have failed in the recent past.

To be fair Wigan saints Warrington and Widnes any of these sides facing eachother are big games to their fans...who is the biggest rival will depend on the individual, Wigan and Widnes for me were the must watch games growing up.

Agree that we don't have the production line that Wigan saints and Leeds are renowned for. And it has certainly held us back at times.

We have thewlis and wrench who I think will be long term Warrington first team players...and I believe there are a few other young lads that are looking promising one of which in the Half's so Riley deans position is under threat already and he's not even been given a good run of games yet. Hopefully we become more decisive and ruthless in this regard.



Als

I hope so, it would be good for the game in general.

What's going on with Mago? He should be all over this game on Friday.

With Smithies out do we move Shorrocks to 13 and bring Astley in or do we say Smith and Shorrocks are our halves until Cust/Field are fit to play ?
Got options but personally I think we're probably better off letting Smith/Shorrocks work together as often as possible until Cust/Field are back

You'd imagine Mago and Isa would come in to replace the two missing forwards and the backs would remain the same, assuming there are no other injuries we don't know about (French was down at the end which was nervy for a while but he seemed to be fine afterwards).

Harvie Hill back from Toulouse, so could make the squad potentially.

French is fine, he was just winded. We asked him when we took the kids to get their shirts signed.

There’s no doubt Warrington is a big game, especially with the start they’ve had to the season but no game is bigger than v St Helens.

Astley should be nowhere near the first team. We’ve got enough inexperience as it is without chucking him into a key area of the side. Stick with Shorrocks/Smith for now as the stop gap and rotate Powell/O’Neill so we have at least some consistency in the spine.

You’d imagine Ellis or Havard might drop in there or possibly Isa/Faz, with the remaining one partnering KPP in the second row. It’ll be a scrappy looking team but I’m sure we’ll give it a good crack.

Assuming everyone fit and available to play i'd start with the same 1-7 as v Saints.

Pack would be Ellis, Powell, Byrne, Isa, KPP, Faz

Havard, Mago, O'Neill and Singleton on the bench

Id stick Ellis at 13 and bring in Hill on the bench

Good luck with that one!
There are only 254 seats left and most of those are single seats.
The 3 blocks - O,P,Q - nearest the away end have only 25 seats left in total.
No idea how well the away stand ticket sales are going (~3500 capacity), but the south stand is well of the way to being full (750 tickets left)
I think this could well be the highest attendance ever at the HJ and one of the few sell-outs.

I remember a few years ago when the away stand wasn't full Wire fans were allowed to buy on the gate.
Absolutely no idea if that would happen this time.
I hope you pack the West stand out.

My bad, I should've been more specific, I meant discussing the game

I’m hearing that Warrington only potentially have kasiano and Vaughn ready for this game. What’s happened to the rest of them? Jesus some luck signing all those props to them be reduced to only 2 fully fit options

Dudson - suspended - almost universal condemnation of his antics on our boards
Philbin - suspended - 2 games (dropped hip tackle on Da Costa)
Harrison - knee issues - not back for a few weeks yet
Bullock - broken thumb - might be back for Saints, not certain
Mikaele - gone back to Oz
Holroyd (promoted from the Academy) - dislocated shoulder - out for a couple more weeks.
Clark - knee injury - out for another month or so.

And I thought we'd recruited one too many props.
Just shows how little I know.

And also our centre - Wrench - out for a few more weeks.

Maguire will be our 2nd starting prop - moving from 13. He's played there is Oz. Matautia will mover to 13 and Minikin will come in at right centre. Not too worried by that move-about, but we are light on experienced props on the bench. Likely to be Kasiano and 2 of the youngsters, along with maybe Matt Russell.

C'est la vie.

Jesus maybe it’s in both Wigan and Warrington interest to change this to a tag rugby fixture

That's grim by anyones standards but better now than September especially as you've plenty of points in the bag already

Dudson 5 game ban.

Seems pretty fortunate tbh. The gradings have been altered now but to think Ellis got 5 games for a stand up ruck with another big prop last season and Dudson gets the same for throat punching a winger, who was pinned down, doesn’t seem right.

Less than 1,000 tickets available in the Wigan end. I am sure that they will be snapped up in the next few days.

Dudson - 5 game ban - no complaints from me.

Thanks for the ticket update.

Wire fans, on the whole, would have liked him banned for longer.