Agree with you totally....thats been our problem now for at least 3 seasons IMO. If we truly want to win major honours then we have to have a pack of big doing it tough forwards for the future. I wont knock the lads we have as im sure they are doing their best.

I'm not saying our pack is weak either - but just possibly it may be missing a couple of Gannon's or Morrissons. Plus, we aren't top of the league for nothing - our pack have sustained enough defensive efforts to put us where we are but i just hope we don't get muscled out of a GF berth come October.

I agree cos watching this final Im seeing things missing in our own game. It seems Widnes have turned things round I am very weary of them.

They're a completely different team. There was obviously a bar room culture there before Cullen got in. He seems to have sorted that out. I still think they'll have to play an away match in the play offs though.

Who do you consider to be the monsters playing today?

I wouldnt class either of them monsters. Good tough players, yes but not monsters, in the same mould as Larder and Roberts for us. When we have James back in the side our pack is a completely different propostition. I still think even if he isnt fit we have the players to dominate up front but we need to start doing it more often.

But we have a mobile ball playing pack with big hole punchers when needed.

We need them to do it more often though.

Apart from Said, the front rowers either operate in fits and starts like Frankie or are just solid enough and just go steady like Wrench, Cherryholme and Wilson.

Look at Celtic and Salford last year, they had Tangata-Toa, James, Stapleton as well as Edmondson and Jackson at Haven who go all out and really tough it out.

We do have the players to do it but its few and far between.

Pickersgill, Fletcher and Gannon in particular. I'm not saying it wins matches but Barrow turned up today with the aim of "hard hitting" Widnes out of the game but they've given as good as they got. I'm just not sure we could have done that. Sheffield really got into our faces and we lost.

On a positive note, we haven't lost against Barrow, we've beaten Widnes twice and gifted them this final berth through an inexplicable error. I'm not waving the white flag just yet

We certainly were when we played Cas, so I cant see any reason why we coulodnt & wont be able to mix it with either of these teams later in the season.

Think we need to be a bit more aggressive in the pack. We have some good players but sometimes from watching games I get the feeling we are too nice and dont knock the hell out of the opponents pack. I do not mean we should be fighting but knock the hell out of the opponents pack in the tackle. James sometimes does this and for me we are missing him big style. We need james for next year and somebody similar to him.

I feel that Widnes deserve some credit for how they have gone over the past month or so but to put things into perspective over that period, we had lost James, Govin, Haley and Roberts who all would have been involved during that period and Widnes pick up four or five super dooper league players on loan....where is the level playing field...IMO its all about money but i cant blame Widnes as they are doing the best for themselves....its just the whole structure that allows this to happen.

Nothing wrong with that. It's just a question of financing, not the system. In Wendyball, Chelsea were able to win the title by spending lots of cash - an option still available to ANY footy club with cash at their disposal. We too could get 4 SL players "on loan" if we had more cash.

when we lost to Widnes and Gateshead we were outmuscled.In the NRC , Widnes started with Morrison , a prop , playing back row in addition too the starting props ; so with big second rowers they out fought us and out powered us.Against Gateshead we started with only 1 prop with one other on the bench - again we were overpowered.We have to start with Wilson and Cherryholme (in the absence of James) and then bring on Said and Watene;that means you've got 2 lumps on all the time.Larder cant play prop ; hes just not big enough , he's needs to be running wide and into the gaps - aka last season .

Agree. Would hope that Matt & Martin persuade the Bulls to release James to us, and that they have another snarling aggressive prop on the shopping list, a la Mitch Stringer at Sheffield.

What Widnes did today was copybook rugby.The forwards set the platform ,then after a while on comes Duffy , and they play slightly more expansive and go on from there.Its what Fax did earlier in the season ; Wilson , James etc set the platform , on comes Gleason / Penky and teams are ripped apart especially down the middle.But you've got to set the platform and thats where the big guys come into it

My thoughts also. Their style of play reminded me of the way we were tearing through defences. We don't seem to achieve as much success recently and perhaps we need to get it back again. Nice to see the style succeed, shame it was Widnes and not Fax that used it today!

Perhaps Mr Cullen has been studying the Fax videos and liked what he saw.

I woldnt say Morrison is that big a player. Id say Larder is bigger than him. Larder just lacks that impact in the tackle that some props have.

Get back to basic on how we played at the start of the season. I do think we are building towards the play off now and we will start to see us playing in a style which was more like at the start of the season. We have done it a couple of times recently, the first half against Barrow and the games against Leigh. We were strong, difficult to break down and controlled the game.

I am sure we will learn from our mistakes in the past and will start to regain the form we know we can achieve now the business end of the season is approaching.

This is just what we were saying on the way back from Blackpool , I think we need a couple of agressive forwards.

i agree with the big pack we could possibly need a stronger pack but we are top of the league and we have beaten widnes 2 from 3 this season and have beaten barrow 3 from 3 so we dont really have a problem let them have there big packs we are top and have a good record against the both of them.

Valid point but can we win when it really matters ie semi NRC and possibly GF eliminations. Its ok being top all season but its the silverware that matters. For me we defo need some forwards to see us through.

well i beleive we can do. widnes were just up for it and took there chances all the time on the day it wansnt going to be our day we will lose to these teams at times.

i do beleive that come play off time again we can do like last season we didnt have much of a pack last season and still beat widnes in the play offs.

yes we will need to sign some big forwards for next season but i beleive we are more than caperble of getting to the grand final and winning it with the players we have.

Simple answer is no. Fear the black and white.

...until all the loan signings go back and we've got no one to score points again....