It's hard to know for sure but as it stands and assuming no more new positive cases the only players back for the derby are Savelio, Wynne and Johnstone as all three have completed their suspensions.

Jake Connor is close to a return and could be back. The other unknowns are Fonua, Sneyd, Satae, Vulikijapani and Shaul. If we assume that they are the ones who missed last night due to Covid protocols then under current rules they'll miss the derby too. There was some talk of the rules being relaxed but that hasn't been confirmed.

Thank you, that’s a little clearer, I thought perhaps wrongly, a lot of the missing players yesterday, was because of none vaccinations, thus not being able to travel, unless you can travel without jabs as an elite sportsman.

This particular Derby has taken on even more meaning, if that’s even possible.

We have scored more points than you and conceded less.

I'm not sure that's true. Personally I accepted the season was done after Huddersfield and the Derby is a foregone conclusion given Rovers current form. We're not even in the 6 now.

The big question for me now is how we will be going into pre season in 3 months time both as a club and squad. Maybe for a different thread but as emotive as a Derby loss will inevitably be for a week or so it's the bigger picture that concerns me more.

There are enough games left in this season for us to get something out of it. It's up to our coach and players to start producing on the field and earning their well paid salaries. They've had undoubted obstacles to overcome but they've also underperformed, it's time to show what they are made of. A good run to the end to the season will have a positive impact on next year, a bad one may have huge ramifications. Feeling sorry for ourselves is not an option.

We don’t often disagree, but… regarding Huddersfield we beat them at home with a really gutsy display, the score is 2-1 in our favour.

Derbys could go anyway, but this one has even more added spice, it’s almost the indication of our season possibilities.

We don’t need to be in the six, till the season ends, and a positive spin would be, the return of Tag, Connor, even Shaul, a possibility we will even enter the final countdown with a full squad, for the first time, the return of Andre also is welcome news.

And almost unbelievably, the final six teams who qualify, given the ordinariness of the competition this year, anyone of them have a shout.

Have faith Mrs B, the fat lady hasn’t even got near the podium yet.

Pretty much agree with you Rider. For me playing games in a stop start nature along with little prep time due to no training etc in lines with the covid protocols it’s difficult to get any momentum or form. It’s a lopsided season as teams who are in full flow are playing teams hit with covid and missing games. On top of that I believe that the multi nations game with England has impacted us with the loss of Connor.

I thought listening to the game there is certainly more to pleased with than not. The Huddersfield game was a complete lottery for both sides and against Leeds we just threw it away with a poor performance and I’ll discipline.

For me we are now looking at getting most of our players back and at the right time to hopefully build some momentum and make the play offs. The advantage is we may have is fresher players in the run in than the teams around us.

This is probably the first derby where we will rightly be the underdog due to the form So pressure in a way is on Rovers more than us as people are writing us off.

Personally I’m confident that we’ll now go on a run, now that we’ll have a strong squad to pick from.

I think we’ll beat Rovers, then back it up with wins v Cas and away to Salford. Hopefully this will give us momentum to go into September.

We really could do with being able to re-schedule and play Our home games v Leigh and Salford. It would be good if they could just announce whether they are extending the season and allow teams to get these dates in the diary.

My thoughts too.

Already announced in the last week or so that GF remains on the same date so season not being extended

Link please?

At the time, I fully understood the reasons Jake wanted to take part in that game, but as you say, boy that decision has come back to haunt us, then they called the World Cup off ffs. The madness of rugby league, and still his contract is not officially declared.

Quote ="cheekydiddles"Already announced in the last week or so that GF remains on the same date so season not being extended'" Reference to it here... https://www.totalrl.com/super-league-cl ... on-format/ And they're still selling tickets for the 9th of October.

Quote ="cheekydiddles"Already announced in the last week or so that GF remains on the same date so season not being extended'" Reference to it here... https://www.totalrl.com/super-league-cl ... on-format/ And they're still selling tickets for the 9th of October.

Quote ="ccs"Reference to it here... https://www.totalrl.com/super-league-cl ... on-format/ And they're still selling tickets for the 9th of October.'" Cheers. Bad news for us then. There's no way we can play ten games before the play-off start around 23rd/24th September. Salford might want to squeeze the game in if they have any chance of making sixth but there's no motivation for Leigh who are doomed to relegation.

Quote ="ccs"Reference to it here... https://www.totalrl.com/super-league-cl ... on-format/ And they're still selling tickets for the 9th of October.'" Cheers. Bad news for us then. There's no way we can play ten games before the play-off start around 23rd/24th September. Salford might want to squeeze the game in if they have any chance of making sixth but there's no motivation for Leigh who are doomed to relegation.

Quote ="ccs"Reference to it here... https://www.totalrl.com/super-league-cl ... on-format/ And they're still selling tickets for the 9th of October.'" Disappointing that they are unable to extend the season by 3/4 weeks. It would give the competition more integrity allowing games to be rearranged. If the date clashes with a Man U game I'm sure they could find another stadium with a big enough capacity in the North to accommodate the final.

Quote ="ccs"Reference to it here... https://www.totalrl.com/super-league-cl ... on-format/ And they're still selling tickets for the 9th of October.'" Disappointing that they are unable to extend the season by 3/4 weeks. It would give the competition more integrity allowing games to be rearranged. If the date clashes with a Man U game I'm sure they could find another stadium with a big enough capacity in the North to accommodate the final.

If you extended the season, how would you work around the players contractual situations?

Yep that could well be the reason why they haven't done so.

Just watching the game on FCLive. Carlos' sinbinning looked harsh.

What actually happens when a Cats players steps forward 3 paces after being tackled and Childs tells him to get back to the mark, rather than penalising him?

I know I was only listening to a commentary, but it sounded like a crucial decision as we never saw the ball again after that.

Childs was the ref, I've lost count of the harsh sin binning we receive off him

No biased though oh no.........

Currently witnessing the poorest group of officials we've had in the sport by a long shot

Funny but they are always bad when you lose
every teams fans are the same

ccs do you have Bowdens stats by any chance?
think he did 1 carry in the first half for about 3 metres

Not many (5), but he made more carries than Fash, Lane and Brown. Sorry to disappoint.

Our 9 forwards made 56 carries in total.

Cats made nearly 50% more carries than we did, so there was a crazy amount of defending to do.

had chance to watch the game now and yes we did lot of defending.Its the first game i have ever seen where a team never had a set in the opposition 20 in the whole of a second half,in fact we never got anywhere near their 20.
Was interested to see what Bowden did which wasnt much but did notice that Houghton always seemed to go in the opposite direction to Bowden which meant Taylor when on the field did a lot more work than Bowden.Whether that was planned i dont know.
Didnt understand the coach having McNamara,Walker and Scott defending the left edge when maybe Tuimavave at left centre would have shored up that side a bit more defensively.
Houghton taken a lot of stick on here recently but was by far our MOM .
I also think McNamara is better suited as a future nine rather than half back.