You give more penalties away when you lose the collision, so it can be a snowball effect.

You start to lose the collision, you get on the back foot, you give penalties away. You do more tackling, you get fatigued, you start losing the collision.

Spot on. Refs have a natural bias towards the side winning collisions - and rightly so. If you batter a runner you earn the right to control him a little longer, if the ball carrier wins he should be allowed to play the ball quickly.
Best way to win a collision with the ball is to avoid it. The best forwards have good feet and are difficult to get a big hit on. Gareth Ellis was very good, so are JJB and Ablett on a good day.

A hapless defeat to a mediocre club like Widnes certainly will have the McDermott critics coming out of the woodwork.

A McDermott team speciality of a complete regular season capitulation look a possibility again.

But I will reserve judgement until we get Hall and Briscoe back.

I hope we were not holiding either back for the CC game, because it's important for us to keep out lead at the top this year

Hall get his cast off tomorrow so if he gets the ok he could play on Saturday.

Briscoe is still around 6 weeks away I believe.

Stevie Ward twisted an ankle today but didn't seem too bad after the game. Not heard why JJB missed out this week, he might've been not risked with next week in mind. Sinfield, even before today's game I didn't think he'd get picked but regardless of the result and performance, that he would play in the cup game next week.

I don't get this idea of players "holding back" for the Cup game. If you're picked and getting (very well) paid to put on a shirt, you should be busting a gut to deliver your best available performance every week.

If you're picking and choosing when to turn it on, you should be out the door.

We might be playing half the Academy on Saturday then Andy.

It has been said repeatedly, but I'll say it again.

I dont believe McD has the foggiest what his best team is. Which quite frankly is pretty damming of a head coach.

No players should need resting at this point in the season. You can't blame the cup as we've been rubbish since spanking saints.

How can players play as a team when they are always having different players either side of them?

It's not a case of "holding back" per say but come on, if you watch team sports you know teams have often taken their eye of the ball in the league when cup matches have come around. Wigan basically handed the 2013 LLS to Hudds once they got to the Semis of the cup. Warrington still had plenty of time to make the top 8 in 2009 but failed to do so but did win the CC. In football, teams that have floated around the bottom of the league have made finals, some even winning despite being relegated like Birimingham and Wigan. Both Liverpool and Chelsea won the Champions League despite finishing outside the top 4.

The comparison with football is tricky as they often have midweek games and generally play more games than rl and do a lot more travelling, especially for European games, albeit it has a less physical involvement.

Your rl comparisons are also aimed at the latter stages of the cup which by proxy is also into the second half of the season. Neither apply to our game on Saturday. Quote honestly, if top level professional players can't manage one game a week little more than 12 weeks into the season then we have problems.

We have problems. And by we I mean the sport of Rugby League.

The players are too big and too strong.

Our's do not seem too big or strong at the moment

I know, at this rate we might only finish 2nd.

Thanks to the ridiculously convoluted and crowded fixture calendar, we're not even half way through the regular season yet.

Leeds still have Wigan to play three times, Saints twice, Huddersfield and Warrington once each. On current form, would you back them to win any of those?

As I said wait until the split and they have to play the top teams week in week out.