From today's press conference, via the club's twitter:

Flower & Gelling are good for Thursday, Lockers & Manfredi next week, Sam 3 weeks, Crosby having a scan on his knee, Williams back training.

All good news. If we can put Hudds away on Thurs, we'll have come through this injury crisis relatively unscathed.

Agreed. I'm quietly confident we can achieve silverware this year. We have not performed well at all for much of this season and we are joint top, with a full team firing at the business end of the season then why not?

Not sure that bit is good news..


The rest is, though

Hopefully Crosby will be ok. He was impressive on Friday.

Good to hear that we could be pretty much fully fit (aside from MM) in a months time. The side has done it tough and had to really grind the results out. Hopefully that will really stand them in good stead when it comes to the big games.

All depends how we click in attack once S.Tomkins and Williams are back IMO. As it stands I don't think we can afford to be so toothless in attack once the pitches dry up and the opposition's passes start to stick a bit more.

Regards Williams, I'd heard this weekend it was an issue with a disc in his back. Therefore encouraging to hear he is back in training.

Agreed though we can't expect them to click straight away. They will both need time to get back up to fitness and get their confidence back before we see them anywhere near their best.

No news on Faz?

I had a look earlier and there was no mention of Faz. They said 4 or 5 weeks on the radio straight after the Wakey game but then 2/3 weeks were mentioned a few days later.

It sounds as though we'll have everyone back around mid May though which will be a good position to be in. They'll hopefully then be able to build good form and fitness leading in to the Super 8's.

Probably "resting" Faz to be honest, he deserved dropping on top of his ban after his behaviour in the Wire game. I don't believe for a minute he has a "rib injury".

We have enough back rowers anyway. Gregson is showing his capable of playing at the top level and you'd assume Bateman will go back to 13 when Gels returns. Burke is playing ok, not pulling up any trees, Joel is getting back into it and is a sure starter. Isa for me is average at best, decent defence but will never be as good as Faz, Joel or Bateman. He is a typical Wane signing, solid, not a gamble, does his job but unimpressive. We also have Connor Faz to come back from Widnes

Connor Farrell is out for the season. Liam Farrell has a rib injury, no drama

Did Liam Farrell use up an Early Guilty Plea to reduce his ban whilst knowing he was injured and wouldn't be able to play anyway?

Once found guilty he loses his early guilty plea for the next 12 months anyway.

I would still say we need Williams back sooner rather than late,r I wouldn't be comfortable playing Gregson at 6 for too long. The position looked Alien to him against Wakefield and he got caught in defence a few times in the middle that said he Wasn't alone in that department but he's a cracking prospect. Yep I definitely think Bateman will go back to 13 he's a absolute machine and we can't afford not to start him even if he's probably not a natural 13 with ball in hand. Id say Isa and Sutton must be carrying knocks because they have been below standard the last few games. Sutton misses far to many key tackles and needs to work on this part of his game if he wants to succeed at Wigan. His go forward was fantastic last year and I thought he was our best prop in some games but it's just not clicked this year he must be carrying an injury.

Agree with the poster above about Willie Isa. He has a lot of improvement to do before getting in the team ahead of Joel, Faz or Bateman. Gregson looks a great prospect. It's strange that in adversity things like this happen. His confidence should be really high after Friday and I would pick him ahead of Isa when SOL returns. Isa looks very ordinary, solid in defence but nothing in attack. Of course, it is possible that he isn't 100% fit, and there is more to come, so maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

Great to see Lee Mossop stepping up in the last few weeks. I think he has been our best prop this season. With Flower to return I think that Sutton will get a rest. He's only young (very young for a prop) and needs to be looked after IMO.

Gelling has been a big miss as he was playing at the top of his game when he got injured. However when he returns from injury I've noticed that he seems to struggle at first to find his best form.

Just a word on Josh and Sarge. You'd never know that these guys are leaving us as the effort they bring to the team is full on. Josh's tackle at Wakey when we were 50-0 down is a case in point.