we will more than compete in the pack this season! dont you all worry.

when all fit, i see a starting pack of.

Barlow penky Hesketh manning morrison and ashall,

with aizue, divorty and robinson on the bench!

add to that J barlow and J chandler (who i think have both impressed in pre season) and things are looking good! very good! and not to forget Reittie aswell as an option!

even when we get injuries we have cover all over.

oh yeah and add to that an awsome back line and hb combo and i think by the time the league starts well be flying.

Battering teams in submission through defence, forcing the knock on and quickly shifting it wide for worrincy and Reittie and Whitey to bag 20 tries apeice!

Only if ref plays advantage when there is none!

gannon over hesketh for me.

I believe that last season you didn't run an U23 team?
Although your lads were on the wrong end of a heavy defeat last night in the long run having a reserve team will strengthen your first team as players who don't perform can be dropped and still get game time.
Should be an interesting season and I think there will be a few suprise results this season.

We ran an U23 side last year.

To be fair to the Fax lads they never stopped battling..... right to the very end against a Fev team which included Dom Maloney, Anthony England, Muffy, Johnny Hepworth, Tom Hemmingway Jack Bussey and Tom Carr, and barring Bussey who is the only genuine youngster, all those names are from the first team squad.

42-0 sounds a right drubbing and Fev were the comfortable side. But the scoreline doesn't reflect the work and bottle shown by the opposition.

Barlow had 20 mins but currently is the same shape as me, looked about as mobile as me and was blowing like Thomas the tank enginge!! He's a way off first team duties just yet .

I'll give you the great back line (although less so since the loss of Nanyn) but i'm not convinced on your halfbacks at all. Thackeray is a one trick pony and Handforth is steady enough, clever kicking game but nothing spectacular. Bowman is inexperienced at Championship level so a bit of an unknown quantity, could come good but proven nothing so far.

Not ruling them out, they could 'click' and prove a great pairing but i've not seen anything from them in the past that I would describe as 'awesome'

Certainly not as ' scary ' as the Penky,Beswick,Black,Brannigan combo of a couple of years ago

Do you think you scare us like

Tomorrow should be a great time for the half backs to really put on some moves. I'd like to see Handforth and Thackeray start just to see how well they can work together. However I believe it is Bowman starting? He deserves it really he was good enough against Dewsbury and can hopefully only improve.

O'h no, he's back. Think the time of his pot says it all.