Squad: Aspinwall, Bowden, T Briscoe, Foster, Green, Heremaia, Horne, Houghton, Lineham, Lynch, Manu, McGoldrick, Pitts, Seymour, Turner, Watts, Westerman, Whiting, Yeaman


Houghton's back in the squad, which is good, but in the interview with Gentle of FCTV he said that Houghton hasn't trained yet which makes me think that he probably won't play yet, or if he does it'll be short spells only.

Bowden, Houghton, Foster in
Cunningham (England Academy), Russell (Loan return), Crooks (injury) out.

would have Bowden on the bench
Obviously Houghton if he is able to, and rotate with Heramaia
if not then can see Green starting on the bench

think Lineham will miss out and Foster will play on the wing

Bench:
Bowden
Houghton/Green
Aspiwall
Pitts

Horne
Briscoe
Turner
Yeaman
Foster
McGoldrick
Seymour
Lynch
Heremaia
Aspinwall
Manu
Westerman
Whiting

Watts
Bowden
Pitts
Houghton

If either of Houghton or Bowden are unfit then I would put Green on the bench.

Lineham to miss out.

Put Foster outside of Yeaman as I think that Turner and Foster on the same wing could be a defensive nightmare.

Obviously this is all my opinion and not what I think Gentle would do.

It will be interesting to see how Liam Watts does in his first game back at Craven Park and against KR.

gutted that there is no O'Meley, even for 10mins he'd have offered some much needed impact. I personally would have played Radford his aggression too.

Bit light up front, however if it warm on Monday this may not be too bad, I expect/hope Watts may have a point to prove, I also hope Foster has a good debut as he likes the whitewash and kicking goals.

I doubt that it will be that warm come the evening kick off time.

On a slight tangent, i know we have 13 squad members missing plus a few released. But Soppycock over the river says they have just as many players out. I was just wondering who these mystery players were

Wishful thinking on my part

....no doubt it will be pickling it down after all it is July

The forecast is around 21 degrees on Monday evening. Summer rugby at last



[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2645425?day=2[/url

Welham and Lovegrove. Taylor not playing this one either. In a "triple timely boost", Galea, David Hodgson and Clinton all play.

If its 21 degree's, it'll still be 5 degrees inside Craven Park! that place is like the arctic!

To be honest, not looking forward to the derby. Heart says we'll win, but brain saying were gonna get battered.

To many players under performing and if foster is partnered with turner then the right hand side gonna get picked on. as neither can tackle

Turners performance has no doubt dropped off, however his tackling and missed tackles are better than both Yeamos and Crooks, he has only missed approx 10% of tackles compared to Yeamo & Crooks who are both on approx 20% missed tackles, Turner can tackle. Also worth noting he has made the 4th most metres out of the full team with only Lynch, Manu and Briscoe ahead of him. I think people are being too harsh on Turner, he appears to be the new scapegoat.

Willie Mason?
Liam Watts?

turner can tackle, problem is he can't defend hence his winger constantly being left in the lurch

Turner is very good with ball in hand in the centre and has pace. If saints can sort out his poor defensive reads and positioning they've got a decent young player. Hopefully we'll try to exploit his weaknesses next season.

Turner tackles, but they're not always good tackles. Many times he fails to put the player to ground or wrap up his arms, resulting in the player getting an offload away and a hole appearing in our defence.

He doesn't seem to read the game well defensively. He regularly leaves his winger exposed.

He is also 3rd in the squad for Errors, with only Manu and Seymour making more.

He's pretty good when he has the ball - his drives are decent and he has pace to get past players - but he's severely let down by his defensive displays.

Welham, Lovegrove, Taylor, Cox, Clinton, Hodgson, Galea all injured.

Great post

I don't disagree that his positioning can be questionable and his performances appears to have gone down hill as have Manus imo, however I still think some posters are being particularly harsh on him recently when imo there are are a lot of others in the team whose performances are just as if not more woeful. Some posters talk as if he is absolutely shiite and he is most definitely not imo, put it this way I would sooner have Turner than Welham and as we know Welham is a knights player.

I dont't disagree with any of that tbh, especially the last sentence

Are you here all week? If none of them play, £10 to charidee from me, if any of them play, £10 from you. Deal?

Also, Turners metres are bloated by the fact 2 break away tries account for 170 of them.

'eh ain't that what we want all our centres to do ?
Although for arguments sake if you knock those meters off he still makes more than the majority of the team including the other centres.