Stop Ah Van, you'll stop them. Get the Binman on him.

Looking forward to it. We need to be loud behind the lads on Thursday however many of us there are. They've worked had for the last few weeks so it's our turn again.

I might need to sleep all this weekend after Newcastle then schlepping over there!

With the recent run this is now not the must win game I thought it might be. A win would now put us in a very good position, but a loss wouldn't rule us out as I'd feared. Carry on as we have been and I think we'll be knocking on the door of the top 6.

Kev Brown would be gutted reading that!

Reading this thread is just like reading the Widnes board, Thursday is a big game for both of us and would be a very important 2 points for whoever gets them. I agree a defeat isn't the end of either side - the league is that close there's not much point looking at it too much at the minute. Should make for a good game though, the division split is to surely create more fuss around games like this.

Good point viking - the structure makes this game huge. The down side of the structure is that whoever comes 8th or even 7th and has no chance of then making the top 4 - their games could become fairly pointless. We'll see how it pans out.
Real pity its not a sunday afternoon, would be probably a record crowd in modern era for this fixture. Both teams playing really well, we'd have a huge following if on the sunday. Brown is the best 6 in SL for me currently, if we can starve him of too much good ball, we'll go well.

You could be right but the way things are going this year I think the team finishing in 8th won't be far behinde the team in 4th and will have a fighting chance with a good run of results to finishing in top 4.

With games left I think we could finish in any position from 4th - 11th

And you could argue so could Cats/Cas/Hudds - makes for an exciting league which is surely what we all want.

Re: Kev Brown - he certainly is the man who makes us tick but give him too much attention and we have ways to change our play. Joe Mellor at scrum half is potentially a better player for us and a few times when Brown gets the attention it creates more space for Mellor, and you'll all know about Heremaia who has been fantastic for us.

Hope you all have a safe journey over - should be a belter.

Sorry to disappoint you, Jake, but Widnes have 3 more home games after Thursday namely Huddersfield, Catalans and Salford, all well winnable. Our remaining away games are Hull KR, Castleford and Wigan. Interesting end to season. Should be a cracker on Thursday, and we definitely owe you one after last season, when you absolutely steamrollered us.

Sorry, thought you only had 2.

No problems with today's disciplinary reviews, although Watts, Mini and Sa did get "no charge", as did Phelps.

Good point that No6, never realised we beat them without those 2.

If we win by 15 we'll go into 6th, draws for the Cats/Warrington and KR/Cas fixtures wouldn't go amis tbh (or even KR beating Cas) as that puts us in a stronger position for the Wakey game should we win and not lose too much ground if we don't win on Thursday.

I hope our next game drop after a good performance routine doesn't come to the fore

What routine is this?

Can't you read?

Daft as it sounds you'd be better playing Leeds or Wigan so you know the intensity has to be maintained.

I can read. Are you saying we can't string two good games together?

I know what you're saying but it's a difficult one to judge. The physical and emotional drain from Saturday and our oft good performance then average or bad performance the following game means I'm not that confident especially on their turf (no pun intended).

Putting together consistently good performances has being our downfall, in reality we've put two good/excellent games back to back once this season (warry away & Cas in the cup) yes you can scrape a win but it's not convincing for the fans, the players or the coach.
I'm hoping that we turn up switched on, bash them early doors and keep on bashing them, Brown is the key, we need to nail him (fairly) at the earliest opportunity and knock the stuffing out of him, as much as Ah Van is a threat Brown is a class and Widnes have some very good players all over the park.

May I jump in. In one of those moods tonight. Stringing two wins together is not the same as stringing two good games together that result in wins.

How many back to back games have we put in two excellent performances, this season it was Warry away & Cas in the cup at home, what other great back to back performances are you thinking of?
It's being touched upon on the forum often by many posters about consistency so not exactly a new phenomena is it

You've changed "good" to "excellent" I see; interesting. And said we have a pattern of playing poorly after a good win. Look at our last 9 results and show me the high-low trajectory please.

Difference is that, this weekend took nothing out of us like the derby at the KC did. The Robins didn't offer any resistance so it's a good job we're not playing one of the top teams this week or we'd have to raise our game tenfold. Widnes will be a much stiffer test so we can gradually step up in intensity.

Certainly. Will be a tough game.

oh, boo-hoo, good, excellent, it matters not, so, I'll ask again, how may back to back performances have we had this year in the normal accepted understanding of performance and which games were they?*

How many times have we played really well and then turned in a bang average performance, that's the standard 'routine' I was describing as you well know, that's how we've being for quite some years and not just under Radford hence why we've not troubled the trophy cabinet.
If you really think we've being putting in game after game performances then you are seriously out of touch.

That's why I said I hope we don't revert to that mould.
*Shaky unconvincing, scrappy wins don't count in case you're asking.

You haven't answered my question. You said we have a pattern of dropping off after good performances but provided no evidence of this oscillation in performance level. The reality is that we've been OK since Good Friday, barring a dullard effort against Huddersfield. Arguably the last four games have been our best group of performances of the season. How this supports an excellent-rubbish pattern hypothesis, I'm uncertain, but pray continue if you feel it affords you licence to trot out the tired old "years of ruin" lines. We've had 48 hours off, so it's overdue

Turn up with the right attitude and intensity we'll win this. But it does have bubble burster written all over it, hope not