And that's down to a lack of a quality half back. Myler just doesn't have it. Watkins is also not a great captain and I meant that with the greatest respect to the lad because I rate him as a man and a player. Praying he gets back to something like.

The last few minutes were made more desperate because Dwyer, Walker and Watkins were all injured and we had no more substitutions to make.

Newman bombed 2 tries due to his inexperience and had those been scored it was a comfortable win however we didint and were left hanging on. Disruptions to the team shape in the 2nd half didnt help. Watkins is still struggling for speed but can take 12 months or longer after that sort of injury to get back to full fitness/speed. He took an interception and struggled to get to KR 40, 18 months ago he strolls in under the sticks. TBH i think a month or two on dual reg would do him some good. Glad of the 2 points, need to keep grinding out the wins

Whilst a win is a win and plenty more of them will get us in to the top 6 it is the manner of the win that bothers me.
To say we need to be further ahead than 20+ points to feel comfortable says a lot about our mental strength.
We lost narrowly to a depleted Wakefied team and we beat an even more depleted HKR team just.
Yes we are building but we are still at least 4-5 players short of something decent.
An 8th or 9th finish would be an achievement this year.

I think if someone had offered 3 out of 5 wins in the league following the Catalans game, we'd have chewed their hand off. In fact, I reckon 3 from 6 following the London game would've been a decent return given the general feeling around the place.

No, we're not going to challenge for the league or probably even the play offs but I don't think that was ever the aim this year.

Yep agree with that. 4 or 5 players in addition to Ava imo

Don't forget Merrin dropped one over the line too in the first half.

Take the 2 points and move on, there was a lot of pluses in the first half and we could have had more points, second half was disappointing, again we were masters of our own downfall. Not to worry if we learn from some of the mistakes, Newman running to the corner and put into touch, he will soon learn to move infield and take the tackle. I don't mind kids making mistakes when we end up with 2 points, so lets move on. Hopefully the injuries are not as serious as they looked. Something not right with KW, he was a angry chap when he was taken off the field, heard he got a bang on the knee, but he seemed OK walking off to the dugout, maybe just what needed to happen, even the captain can be subbed at any stage of the game.

Agreed, Newman will learn from that and the rest of his game was good, Handley alluded to it in his post match interview, he said he told Newman, he would score those trys in the academy or in the Championship but not in SL, the only way for him to learn is to play in SL.

I would give Watkins a week off, play Newman and Hurrell in the centres on Friday.

If Walker, Myler, Mclelland & Dwyer are all out, maybe we will have to bring Golding in to play Scrum Half? Or will he play Smith there?

Sounds like Hurrell will still be missing on Friday from what Furner said post game. Lord knows what that 19 man squad will look like!

As for Newman, backing himself to the corner is exactly what I want to see young players doing. Some round us screaming for the pass back inside a millisecond before he was tackled. Very difficult skill to run on the angle at full speed and then pass back the other way.

Oh and also, I've been Walker's harshest critic but I thought he was quality for us yesterday- particularly defensively. Couple of very important last ditch efforts. Maybe seeing Tui offer a different dimension in us has made JW realise he has a battle on his hands which he hasn't really had with Golding effectively frozen out. Long may it continue.

Dwyer will be a big miss but I think we saw a good Parcell yesterday so hopefully he can rediscover some form. No surprise for me his good form tends to come when Cuthbertson's does and I thought his first spell was very good. Ran hard, looked a threat and got away some neat offloads to get us rolling in that first half.

If all those bodies are missing and Ava makes it over in time I'd expect a team to look something like:

Tui

Briscoe
A Sutcliffe
Newman
Hadnley

Sutcliffe
Smith

Peteru
Parcell
Oledski

Trout
Merrin

Cuthbertson

Singleton
Albert
Donaldson
Ava

Some relatively decent depth in the forwards now so the recruitment focus will shift the halves I'm hoping.

EDIT: Bench looks a bit top heavy but can't see us pulling a back in from somewhere to go on there.

I think we'll probably need to get Walker tied into another deal/know what his plans are before we recruit tbh. If he is staying beyond the end of 2020 which I think is where his current contract takes him to, we can allow Tui/Myler to leave. Personally, I'd like to see us keep Tui but we shall see. If Walker is going then the likelihood is we'll see Tui revert to FB and Myler to stay in the halves.

I'd like to see us have a look at Hastings as well. Did he only sign an extra year at Salford last year? If so, I think he'd be free to look elsewhere as of 1st May should he wish to. However, given they are looking like losing Lui to KR it wouldn't surprise me to see Salford offer Hastings another short term contract on good money- not something I can see/would want Leeds buying into. Suppose it depends what Hastings fancies- is he signing a year at a time in the hope of an NRL return?

Hastings would be massive for us, would bring lots that’s missing at the moment, especially attitude.

Hastings is only contracted for this season, but he's turned down big money from Wigan already, so he seems pretty loyal to Salford. If he goes anywhere it'll be back to the NRL

Wigan don’t have Sinfield...