It’s not going to be easy. I don’t know the loan situations with guys like Clark, O’Neil and Bourouh but we’ll have Hardaker and Singleton (just picked up two matches) suspended, at a minimum Farrell, Bateman and Hastings playing in the superbly timed made up international fixture and French, Field and Manfredi definitely injured and I guess Smithies is still a doubt and Shorrocks doubtful with concussion.

Worst case then-

Hanley
Halsall Bibby Gildart Marshall
Smith Leuluai
Bullock Powell Havard
Isa Pearce-Paul Partington

Subs
Byrne
McDonnell
?
?

Looks like rushing players back from injury, loan call backs or playing a couple of 17/18 year olds will be the only way.

I love this game

Not sure if Clark's two week minimum is up, bring back Hankinson, on the off chance we score a try at least we'll have a goal kicker on the pitch

It feels like we’d play with 16 before recalling Hankinson. I don’t know if it’s financial but if we’ve not called him back by now, I cannot see it. I hope you’re right mind. A centre and one who can kick goals would’ve been extremely handy all of this season so far.

Agreed, there must be a reason he’s not getting recalled, financially.

If he wasn’t getting recalled when we had 2 back rowers in the centres and Hanley on the wing he won’t be getting recalled.

Him, Clark and Borough would be handy this week if we are going to compete.

Another 62-0 coming.

Manfredi injured again. Correct decision to let him leave at the end of the season imo, this can’t keep happening. If its not a big devastating injury it’s one like this that keeps him out 4 weeks.

Such a shame as he’s a class player but the time has come.






Can’t wait for us to let him go and he never picks up another injury in his career.

Yeah, fully agree sadly. He looks like he runs with a constant limp now and whilst it’s horrible to think of all the issues he’s been through, We can’t keep holding on and on forever. The talk on the other board about how the club had been disgraceful in not standing by him was ludicrous IMO. We’ve been waiting for him to be fully fit now for 5 years and he’s had a new contract in that time. I don’t think the club could’ve been any fairer with him and I’d agree with the decision to part ways now. If that comes back to bite us, us knows? I really hope it does in many ways because the lad deserves some luck.

Wigan have stood by him for more than the time he’s been in the first team too. It’s an unfortunate situation but I’d say he needs to reinvent himself as a back rower with less lateral movement if he wants a longer future in the game.

We surely cannot be up to the cap this year so it must not be Financial.

The loan deal itself my prevent a recall?

Crisis talks underway apparently between the RFL and the clubs. Some clubs are refusing to release players for the All stars team. It’s just incompetence at it’s finest the fact this game was planned on the same weekend as club games but who is to blame? The clubs didn’t want to cut the number of fixtures back, so tough to throw the flak all at the RFL.

Lam was in the paper earlier in the year saying they considered recalling him but decided not to. We haven't signed anyone since then so presume the option is still there.

Yep its another joke and I get why some club are against it with P+R during a pandemic

Wakefield trinity players injured or unavailable

Injured

Wood
Tupou
Hampshire
Croft
Walker
Eseh

Unavailable

Westerman
Lyne

I’m guessing Tanginoa and Fifita will be called up to all stars too.

Potentially 11 out for Wakefield.

If your counting players on season long loans too then add

Greensmith
Bailey

So potentially 13 players unavailable for Wakefield from the first team squad.

We can still field a team I think though may have a few fringe and young lads playing.

Its times like this that a we could do with a convenient positive covid case being detected - rather like at Leeds when they were due to play the current champions followed by the current league leaders....

Our under 19s played a close game last week, with Wakey getting a late winner. Let’s just agree to play our under 19s and see what happens

Squad is

2. Dom Manfredi
4. Oliver Gildart
5. Liam Marshall
7. Tommy Leuluai
9. Sam Powell
10. Joe Bullock
11. Willie Isa
14. Oliver Partington
15. Morgan Smithies
19. Liam Byrne
20. Harry Smith
21. Ethan Havard
22. Jake Bibby
25. Joe Shorrocks
27. Kai Pearce-Paul
29. James McDonnell
30. Umyla Hanley
34. Brad O’Neill

Lam has basically ruled Dom out, no sign of Clark or Hank

Hanley
Bibby
Isa
Gildart
Marshall
Smith
Tommy
Havard
Powell
Bullock
KPP
Smithies
Partington

Byrne
Shorrocks
McDonnell
O’Neill

O’Neil brought back from Widnes but no Clark/Hankinson. Manfredi is named surprisingly but I guess he’d be 18th man. I’m really looking forward to seeing Brad O’Neil get some time. He’s been earning rave reviews at Widnes.

Assuming Manfredi is unavailable:

FB 30 Hanley
RW 22 Bibby
RW 27 Pearce-Paul
LC 4 Gildart
LW 5 Marshall
SO 20 Smith
SH 7 Leuluai
P 21 Havard
H 9 Powell
P 10 Bullock
SR 11 Isa
SR 15 Smithies
LF 14 Partington

S 19 Byrne
S 25 Shorrocks
S 29 McDonnell
S 34 O'Neill

I've not seen the Hull KR match yet, so may have a different view after watching that. I gather Pearce-Paul played well so better to have him out there for the full 80 at centre than giving him a cameo off the bench in the pack. His offloads could free up Bibby to resume the regular try scoring we saw from him at the start of the year.

I wouldn’t complain! I’ve been watching a few U19s for trinity this year. Think they’re unbeaten and there’s some real quality lads in our set up I’d like to see more of.

Looking at both teams the match could go either way, will be tough to predict.

Hoping for a good exciting game. I was at our derby game vs Cas last week and it’s the first time I actually found our derby a boring drab affair! Probably due to back to back short turnarounds.

I'm not sure what the logic was in sending Clarke out on loan when we did?

It wouldn't take much foresight to see this week coming up and the disruption it will cause. Granted the Singleton ban was something you can predict, but surely you don't leave yourself this open by sending 'the most devastating prop in the league' out on loan and thus having no backup.

I'm getting a little bit worried about the direction the club is heading in tbh. Whilst I don't want to blow little things like this out of proportion, they do tend to stack up.

I’ve just heard that Leeds have put their game with Salford back to Sunday to allow players to play Friday and Sunday ?? Sounds bonkers to me

I think the decision to get Clark out on loan was the right one at the time. He’s not match fit and needed game time to set him up for our next batch of games. He went for the minimum 2 week period on 10th June so despite already playing 2 games, his loan spell won’t end until 24th which is game day. It’s not ideal for this week but nobody could reasonably anticipate Singleton getting a 2 game ban for a headbut when Hardaker has just been banned for exactly that, crazy by him!! We could anticipate both second rowers being on international duty but we have better cover in that position with Smithies and KPP coming in.

I don't think it's too much of a push to think that having one extra back up (Clark) in case of injuries, on a weekend when it was guaranteed we'd be down, wouldn't have been a smart move.

Same goes for Hank. The second French went down, he should have been called back. It's obvious that Zak will be our #1 and that leaves us down a centre.

Agree re Hank, just not sure of the terms of the loan.

Isn't he on a season long loan?

No idea tbh.

I found a quote from Lam earlier in the season that says something like "we haven't spoken about it" (bringing Hank back).

You'd think that, if we couldn't bring him back, it would be the simple option just to say so.