Here's their squad: www.hornetsrugbyleague.co.uk/Teams/Squad One or two familiar names in there. Mostly pretty unfamiliar to me, and definitely we win [ion paper.[/i Apparently it'll be a similar 19 for Roveds to the last two games, but I hope we go for a bit more size/power in the 17. It'd be good to see Kavanagh make his bow, if he's ready.

Here's their squad: www.hornetsrugbyleague.co.uk/Teams/Squad One or two familiar names in there. Mostly pretty unfamiliar to me, and definitely we win [ion paper.[/i Apparently it'll be a similar 19 for Roveds to the last two games, but I hope we go for a bit more size/power in the 17. It'd be good to see Kavanagh make his bow, if he's ready.

Ratu and Riley aside I don't know any of their players although they look young squad and a few look big units .good test and a real taste of this league we are in.

I seem to remember their half back Palfrey pulling all the strings for Oldham when they turned us over in the CC last year.

Their prop forward Tahraoui is one big f**king unit as well. He makes Nuuasaala at Wigan look like a filleted earwig by comparison.

Friend of mine's lad was there last year, all change this year, it'll be one of many fixtures that we go into a bit blind.

Very hard to come up with a game plan, after you get past Plan One, Smash Them.

I'll expand on this later in the competition.

Think if we turn up with a good attitude, should be a convincing win. Ability wise the two squads are polar opposite. The big question is attitude. Turn up hungry and on a good pitch, we should have more then enough to win comfortably, this is Rochdale remember. With all due respect if we have high ambitions we should be beating these teams with ease.

If he's fit I'd be tempted to play Kavanagh instead of Greenwood. That would send out a message with regards poor defensive displays. I reckon its just a blip for Greenwood and might be for one week but if we have competition for places (unlike last year), we shouldn't just keep fielding the regulars if they don't play well enough.

I was expecting Sheens to introduce his first 'rotations' due to Greenwood, Blair and Donaldson's slow starts to the season, and IMO they are fortunate to remain in the 19 to face the Hornets.

My starting 17 is: Quinlan, Shaw, Heffernan, Minns, Moss; Abdull, Ellis; Scruton, Lunt, Kavanagh, Lawler, Donaldson, Addy - Bench: Clark, Blair, Clarkson & Mulhern (Salter & Greenwood to miss out).

I'm struggling to understand the logic of picking Salter in the Pre match 19-man squad this week. Think we would be better with an interchange forward.

Can somebody enlighten me?

It's always good to have a prolific try scorer in the squad

Apparently Sheens see's Liam doubling up in the back row?

Maybe Salter could be the new Andy Thompson???

Maybe not haha

im looking forward to this game as it's the first one of the season I can get too! Looking forward to seeing how Quinlan goes especially

Daunting and Rochdale in the same sentence...loving it.

Whoooosh!!!!

What excuses are we going to hear this week??

I think we can expect a lot of games like this this season, big physical teams that won't lie down for us

Why are excuses needed? Another win ground out.

Yet again we allow the opposition to score first.... it is very early in the season the pitches aren't great nor are the conditions, I would expect once the ground firms up and the players are more familiar with one another we will post some big scores...

We don't need excuses, the majority of this team will never have played against this type of opposition.
Big unyielding forwards, hell bent on driving you into the turf, and journeyman halfbacks pulling the strings.
We just need to learn to play what's in front of use and not underestimate any team in this division.

A big win is out there, but not until we start to cut out the basic errors and adapt.

We don't need excuses, yet you finish with the excuse about basic errors, which is exactly correct.

I didn't realise making an observation was the same as an excuse, please accept my apology for been so ignorant

Were the team in this league everyone wants to beat there going to try and ruff us up slow the play down and we've just got to get used to it but 3 wins from 3 you can't do better than that the big wins will come once the side is settled

We need to up our game or sooner or later we'll come unstuck.
We didn't respect the ball or the opposition today and we weren't prepared to put in the hard yards. We tried to score miracle try's off every play for a while and Rochdale rightly ground there way back in.
Rochdale were well organised and played with a lot of spirit.
Two points but a very poor display.

I'm not having a dig at you, but the fact you mentioned cutting out the errors is both an observation and an excuse for how poor we played,

Lisa Stansfield, Gracie Fields (nee Stansfield), Anna Friel... Your boys took one helluva beatin'!

Just got back. Boy what an awful game that was. No one covered them selfs with glory today. Poor performances all round.
Rochdale had a game plan of upsetting our rhythm today. Plenty of stops in play and plenty of niggle. And on top of that, an awful display of refereeing.
But once again, we do our usual and start poorly, and let in our customary first try of the game and that set the tone of the match. Our completion rate must have been around the 20% mark in the first half. Awful, awful, awful!!
We tried but our effort was well below what I want to see in a rovers team. We can count ourselves very lucky we didn't lose that one.
Amazing tho what we put up with as fans. Wigan beat Cronulla to become world champs while we just survive beating Rochdale. How far we have fallen.