Personally, I would’nt be looking at dropping Newman for ECW away at Saints in the cup. 
ECW has played 1 senior game in his career. 
I would hope that Arthur has a had a quiet word with a few of them including Newman.


Ackers looks pretty ponderous to me, I also think O’Connor has been pretty poor as well. I don’t know what the answer is at hooker.


The challenge in these next 3 games is can we score at least twice to have a chance of a win. I’m not confident.

Sadly, I'm starting to think the answer might be a new hooker. There was almost unanimous approval for his signing but Ackers has been very average since his arrival. Understand what you are saying re Newman/ECW, and I don't think Arthur will drop him. I just struggle to see what he's currently bringing to the table. He used to be a quick, athletic centre who lacked a bit of craft, but now he appears to have lost most of the former without rectifying the latter. 

Agree about hooker. Newman does not look as quick as he was. We need to find ways of getting him and others more front foot ball. 
The current plan seems to be bringing him back underneath and him going sideways, hoping someone jumps out of the line.


Hoping miller can add a bit on Friday but as Batley keeps saying, can we match them up front ?  I still think we need a big pack leader/captain type at no.8. 

Going back a few seasons now but I always thought Newman looked better at left centre. At right centre he always steps back in looking for a gap that never appears. That drop under play between him and Croft is pointless. Anyone remeber when/why he switched sides?

Before claiming how good the defence looks ill wait to see against the better sides. Wakefield tore out edges apart in the first half. 

We do look fitter overall, although some players still can't manage a reasonable stint. This will help with defence, and particularly our line speed is improved. However, as Seth rightly says the only time it's really been tested by a team going forward then wide was against Wakefield and they broke us at will at times. The next 2 games will tell us a lot about where we are, if we can keep Saints and Wigan to less than 20 points each then the defence is on the right track, if not then we 've got the whole gameplan still to fix.


I still think we have a weak pack, they don't work hard enough, their not big enough, and they carry very little threat with the ball.


I'm sure some people will see this as moaning, but I see it as the things we need to fix first if we want to get back to the top. No point having great Centres (we don't) if your forwards don't lay the platform first.

I think it’s a bit harsh to say the pack doesn’t work hard enough—I really don’t believe effort is the issue. From what I’ve seen, there’s no lack of commitment, but sometimes that effort is misdirected. In the games we’ve won, our go-forward has been on another level, and that’s made all the difference.

The reality is, we’ll never win games if we don’t complete our sets. Basic handling—catching and passing—is the foundation of everything, yet we seemed to forget that against Catalans. It’s frustrating to watch, but hopefully, we’ll sort it out quickly.

I agree with the handling errors part, and you could also throw in penalties conceded. My point, which I'm sure you also understand as clearly you're knowledgeable about the game, is that without the front row "working harder" gaining more metres and winning attacking and defensive collisions, we will continually be under more pressure with the ball, making the handling errors and conceding penalties as the game gets too fast for us. I'd look to fix the front row problems (and winning collisions more generally) to relieve that pressure and we break the cycle.

Not easy, but we have to do it.

How many of the handling errors against Catalans were forced because our pack wasn't making yardage? A few perhaps early in some sets, but it didn't feel like we were being perpetually penned in our own half like in the days of Rohan. One or two of the errors leading to tries were caused by backs bringing the ball out of yardage, something they should be able to do irrespective of who is in the pack. IIRC most of the frustrating errors came when we managed to get into better positions on the field, or at least looked like we had started to build momentum within a set.

I think we have gone a long way to addressing the pack, but not yet far enough. I feel comfortable that we have four good props (when Holroyd isn’t self destructing)  and if we replace and upgrade Lisone at the end of the year we'll have five. I have no doubts that Gannon, injury permitting, will become a back rower of international class, but we need a real physical specimen from the NRL to partner him. That would sort the pack for me, but it's not a this year thing, which is very frustrating. Arthur was probably trying to offset this with yards from Hall (who would have made a difference against Catalans) and Sivo, whose injury was just wretched luck. 

Yep, which is why losing Sivo was a hammer blow to us this season... we will do well to finish higher than 6th imo. 

Yep all our plans to use Sivo/Hall to get us out of our half have gone to pot.
I would still consider it a failure though if we didn`t finish 5th this year.
No doubt another year next season of rebuilding.
Think that takes us to 12 years now.