similar to Cas I expect - looking at their team they didnt have only 5 regular first teamers playing

And who are the 11 that cas had out that would have played?

Minikin, Foster, Wardle, Eden, Roberts, Gale, Watts, Jesse, McMeekan, Holmes, Milner all out And all look like first 17 players to me (albeit not sure)

Burgess, Sutton, Bateman, Farrell, Manfredi, Williams and O'Loughlin. Lost Sarginson to a knee injury early in the game and Escare to similar in the 2nd.

I agree but certainly the Saints loss had the performance. That wasn't really the point I was making though. The post I was responding to (along with how many out for Wigan) was that Cas had lots out and still won. That's clearly true but on another day we could have been talking about a loss as 2 perfectly good Wigan tries were ruled out. Similar could perhaps be said about some of your narrow losses. It's all fine margins in the end and I don't see that the Cas result from last night has any bearing on your situation. As I say, had the officiating been up to the job we'd be talking about a Cas loss with absolutely nothing else needing to change for that to be the case.

On the other hand we'd be talking about a Wigan win with lots of players missing so as you were!

A few decent players there. Other than the 4 kids, who else would have dropped out for the 7 to all play?

Burgess and Manfredi are 1st choice wingers although Davies has certainly staked his claim during Manfredi's absence. Manfredi due back soon so that could be an interesting battle. Farrell and Williams replacing the 2 young lads and O'Loughlin to loose with Isa dropping to the bench. Sutton replaces Hamlin/Navarette.

Just seen a good post comparing the sum total of shirt numbers to determine who had the weakest team out.
If you have your first 1-17 it totals 153.
The Cas shirt total was 296 and Wigans was 277.

More surprisingly was Leeds were a massive 318 but only just lost to a Catalan shirt total of 264.
Gives a bit of credence to McD's point of view.

Except Davies has shirt no. 5 as Manfredi wasn't available at the start of the season and Sarginson (shirt no. 4) was unable to play most of the game.

It also depends on the quality of the person in the shirt.

Indeed. Ben Barba, squad number 23, certainly doesn't weaken Saints! And isn't Liam Watts squad number 30something for you guys? We have Greenwood coming in this week against Leeds. He'll be a high squad number too but we're certainly hoping he doesn't weaken us (although I'm sure Leeds fans would disagree! )

Wow! Shirt number 40 must seriously weaken our team! I guess this game is a shoe in for Leeds then..

Isn't Walker 24 or something? According to the numbers we're far stronger with Golding at full back. Smith and Oledski are clearly automatic first 17 players now, but both have high numbers.

It doesn't really work as an indicator tbh. Had Greenwood been available last week, his inclusion alone would have took our total past Cas'. Using this theory we would, on the face of it, have been a weaker team but that's clearly not the case.

There's probably a 'rough guide' indicator if one team is very low and the other is is very high but beyond that it's very flawed.

Talking of Walker, you've got an absolute gem there!