Catalans or Leeds preferably Leeds seeing as we owe them one

I looked at that team and thought "great we are going with two subs". Neither Clubb or GB were likely to do many minutes and the effect of playing them together was that we were unable to spell players as much as we would have liked. Perhaps it was better to do this now but I do not want to see a game changer like Smith or a big middle being excluded when they might be needed, especially when we continually throw Smithies up the middle to little effect.
I thought that a lot of our kicking was a bit pointless last night and we would have been better served if we could have brought Smith on. I would hate to see him frozen out next year if Hastings stays and he is up against the big money Australian.
Bibby deserves a bit of credit for his performances recently. I still do not see why he is higher in the pecking order than Hankinson except as a cover winger. He was awful under the high ball a few weeks ago but playing on the right he seems confident and more productive. He has now had three good games in a row .

The winners of Catalans v Leeds or Hull if they beat Wire .


Regards EW

Carney claimed we pipped ‘the brilliant St Helens team’ to the LLS as we lifted the tea tray last night and I’ve got two points that bug me.

1-they’ve not been brilliant this year. Kristian Woolf has taken them backwards however you look at it. That’s not to say they’re not a very good team and IMO they’re favourites to take out the Grand Final.

2-They’ve benefitted more than any team when it comes to the quality of their fixtures. They had a run after their cup quarter final defeat of- Wigan’s kids, a decimated Wakey x 2, Leeds kids and a decimated Salford. A LLS win for us is still slightly tainted but for Saints it would’ve been an absolute gift.

Props (middles) minutes last night.

Singleton 1 spell, 18 minutes
Bullock 2 spells, 32 minutes
Partington 2 spells, 55 minutes
Clubb 2 spells, 22 minutes
Flower 2 spells, 30 minutes
Burgess 1 spell, 17 minutes.

Burgess has got to do the decent thing and retire at the end of the season. It’s sad to see such a great player struggling with what must be a degenerative hip condition but he must have known he was a busted flush prior to signing for us. Not only is it weakening the team when he plays, he’s taking a marquee salary that could otherwise be offered to a certain Mr Hastings.

On a more positive note, the lads did what they had to do last night and, whilst it was tight for a while, had it not been for several errors, we could have won by a greater margin. There was this belief with Shaun Wane that the players would run through brick walls for him. Finally, I think we are now seeing that same belief from the player towards Adrian Lam.

3 Numerous home advantage fixtures as well.

so should clubb

Nobody as said anything about Flower though he took the ball up very well ran on to the ball with speed.

Woolf is definitely a poor replacement for me,they still play half decent rugby but not as good as under Holbrook

he was excellent, for me he should have clubbs contract

I watched game with my 2 sons and all 3 of us thought Flower was pretty decent
The quicker game probably suits Flower more.
Together with Bullock they were our best 2 props by a country mile

Flower looks to be trying to earn a new deal or at least a deal somewhere. He’s running with more vigour than he has done for a good while. Unless one of Clubb or Burgess leaves though, I’d still part ways at the end of the season. I thought Clubb played pretty well last night also. It was limited minutes as usual (but then it was for all the props bar Bullock) but his work whilst on was good quality. Lots of intent, carries the ball pretty well and he legally gave Huddersfield’s halfs a tough time. He roughed Aidan Sezer up with big hits on a couple of occasions.

hes always like that, never gives it the big guys though

He us indeed but it’s why I added the word ‘legally’ as it usually isn’t and I’m all fit him doing it within the rules.

This is a problem we have for me. We could have shot ourselves in the foot last night with the subs bench. 3 players notorious for not being able to do many minutes but as it was, we grew stronger as the game went on but we cant keep hold of players who can only do 10-20 minutes. Especially in such an important position. Flower has been decent recently but his injury record over the last few years says he has to go, otherwise i agree with what you say regarding picking one of the 3 but i think we need to say goodbye to all of them. How we can even do that though is very tricky with 2 under contract and one on mega bucks.

There’s no doubt in an ideal world to have all 3 off the books and replaced by one top class prop would be great. It’s a pipe dream but the Thompson rumour is the sort of prop you want to be looking at if you’re going to spend big money on one rather than spreading the space around. We’re building a nice rotation of props with Singleton, Bullock, Havard, Partington and Byrne all having done well this season. You do just feel we’re that one top quality prop short of being pretty dominant in that area. We’re not that at the minute because there’s probably a quantity over quality issue.

with that logic..Manfredi needs to go

I think next season our two starting props should be bullock and havard as they are our two best imo and compliment each other well. It’ll be interesting to see what Willie isa does next year as he won’t be starting ahead of Bateman and Farrell and I’ve always thought Isa is best at 13 so maybe that’s where he could play more often. With 4/5 forwards that could play long minutes you’ve got the chance to experiment a little on the bench I suppose. Personally I’d be looking at something like this

Bullock
Powell
Havard
Bateman
Farrell
Isa

Singleton
Partington
Greenwood
Halfback/Hooker

Manfredi isn't 33 and to be honest he has been pretty non existent this season.

and 2 years ago
and 3 years ago

67 games in 7 years isnt great

Won us the grand final.

He missed 3 full years.

How do people forget these sorts of things?

so could the likes of Flower, Lockers and Clubb who did all the hard stuff in the middle....