Having won our last two games, I don’t see this one as a must win game.

Before we played Salford we had gone two games without a win, hence that was a must win game.

If we don’t get a win on Friday however, there will be some must win games coming up.

My own personal opinion is that it is much better beating one of your top four rivals than a team in the bottom 4 especially at home.
Be nice to have Cuthbertson back even though he won`t be match fit.

At the end of the first 23 rounds last season we sat in 2nd place with 8 defeats, that is not even quite winning 2/3rds of our games yet still sitting pretty. So far this season we have lost just 2 of our first 9 suggesting we are more than well on course to better last seasons points tally for the end of the 23 rounds. Add to that wins at 2 of our rivals Saints and Warrington.

Must win games are coming....late september early october.

you're right, if we loose its not the end of the world, but its always nice to put one over your main rivals especially when you are level on points with them, and its Wigan so always great to do them. plus Hull the week after and they are starting to get desperate for wins, and they surely are due to beat us in a league game for once, we have had them in our pocket pretty much both home and away for a few years now. so it would be a great boost to have to go there not under pressure of going there on the back of a loss.

Wigan by 12 and btw I have not got any predictions right yet

Playing without Parcell will be an enormous challenge!! Wouldn't mind seeing Singleton in the front row too??

Anyone know what's wrong with Jack Walker? if injured, is he out for long? Is Parcell injured too?

Shaun Wane has spoken to Steve Ganson regarding the obstruction rulings and also Oliver Gildart mentions the Rhinos of being guilty in these obstruction transgretions https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby- ... -1-9108359 Sounds like a bit of pre game gamesmanship from the Alpha male,Unless Wigan are finally going to resist in using Grubby tactics any longer and taking the letter of the law to the absolute maximum

Shaun Wane has spoken to Steve Ganson regarding the obstruction rulings and also Oliver Gildart mentions the Rhinos of being guilty in these obstruction transgretions https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby- ... -1-9108359 Sounds like a bit of pre game gamesmanship from the Alpha male,Unless Wigan are finally going to resist in using Grubby tactics any longer and taking the letter of the law to the absolute maximum

There’s a very easy way to not concede a penalty for obstruction. Don’t send your “support” runners in front of the ball and into the defensive line.

Problem solved.

Obstruction penalties aren’t symptoms of weak defence taking the easy option. They’re symptoms of poor, repetitive attack that can’t create space properly.

What’s worse? A defender waving his arms about because an offside attacker is in his way. Or an attacker deliberately getting in the way of a defender so that his team mate can run through the gap he’s just created.
I know which one is cheating and which one isn’t.

I don't think anybody has a clue what obstruction is or isn't anymore. The game has a major issue with it in my opinion.

The refs sends it up to video ref cos he has no clue but there is no point cos the video ref doesn't know what obstruction is anymore either. It's got over complicated and seems to be total guess work nowadays.

Some you get some you don't. It's ridiculous at moment and needs sorting.

The NRL seem one step ahead of us here (again!). They put much more emphasis on whether the "obstruction" had any ACTUAL & OBVIOUS detrimental effect on the defence's ability to cover. If a defender moves towards the dummy runner (a conscious effort to cover that threat) then that is the defender's fault. If (in the opinion of the VR) the ball has moved so far away from the alleged obstruction that it has had no discernible influence (if that incident hadn't have happened then the attack would have developed in exactly the same way) then no obstruction is called.

Of course this is still open to debate as it involves that word "opinion", but the NRL seem much more consistent in their interpretation. In SL it would not be surprising to see two exactly similar incidents ruled both ways in the same match!

Just like the NRL's much more sensible approach to stripping/losing the ball quandary, where they very much put the emphasis on the ball-carrier's responsibility to hold onto the ball. A penalty is only given if a ref sees an obvious stripping motion from the defender. Although I have to say that SL has got a little better at ruling on this. Maybe the 2 ref system has something to do with their consistency also (can you imagine the quality of our refs should we need to double up on them!!!)