Tough test against the Warriors this week. If we are anything like Friday and they are anything like Thursday then it would be a walkover. I doubt that though. The Paul Aiton broken arm is a big blow for us. Hopefully Robbie Ward will take this opportunity to get a new contract for next season. Hopefully Stevie Ward is back also.

Hardaker
Briscoe Watkins Moon Hall
Sinfield McGuire
Garbutt Burrow Peacock
S Ward Ablett
Cuthbertson

Delaney Singleton Leulaui R Ward

Keinhorst Walters

Snap, started the same thread at the same time so I've deleted mine.

But I went for the exact same lineup. Hopefully Stevie Ward is fit and very happy with Garbutt starting.

Did consider to do a straight swap with Robbie Ward starting but think it'd be a tough ask for him to come in against this particular opposition with pretty much zero first team game time this year so have him on the bench.

As for Wigan, attack their left side if it consists of Gelling and Manfredi again, they really did look disjointed vs Hudds. For the love of god let us keep Bowen under wraps this time and got to watch out for Liam Farrell, he was great for them vs Hudds and they probably would've lost without him.

Think that has to be the team, can't see any other options

Just can't see us turning you over at Leeds. We haven't done it since that 50-odd game a few years ago.

Not sure I would be too bothered about you finishing 1st either (as long as we don't finish 4th). Think I'd rather us play Saints than Huddersfield or Castleford at the minute.

THE defining game of the season for me. Win this and we go 4 clear with Saints and Wigan still to play each other. Lose this and it could be a whole different ball game against Hull the week before Wembley. Then Saints after the Cup final. It's the biggest game of our season

It's really not.

It's probably the defining game if we want to win the LLS.

But it won't define our season.

Disagree. Well it depends how you mean by define? Define as in winning the Treble? Or just settling for a CC trophy.

For one reason: Wembley and the impact that will have. We all know what happened last season. Although I don't think the decline in performances will be as bad but we are going to drop points after Wembley. Our rivals have a nice week off whilst we're having an absorbing weekend. Points will be dropped and when that happens Saints and Wigan won't be far behind, making finishing 3rd and getting an away semi final a possibility. We have to open up a nice gap and build a cushion for the Wembley come down.
I said on the release of the Super 8s fixtures that if Leeds get to Wembley they have to win their 1st 3 games of the 8s and that is still the case.

I'm really looking forward to this game. It may tell us a few things. Are Leeds really as good as some are saying? Are Wigan as poor as some are saying?

One thing I'm ALMOST certain of, Leeds won't be allowed to play tick and pass as they have done in the last few weeks. Wigan will get numbers into the tackle to slow the momentum down. Whether that'll be enough to get the job done again, I'm not sure. Leeds are playing a very entertaining brand of rugby at present, but it's up to Wigan to do that defensive job on them, just as they did at Newcastle.

Like they did last time out against Wigan, with the build up to THAT 'try' which was disallowed?

Wigan Checked Leeds momentum at Cardiff a couple of years ago too

Whilst I have no doubt Wigan will do a better job than Saints and Wire they won't be able to stop Leeds' tick and pass throughout the 80. Cuthertson had a nice TEN offloads at the DW last month alone. In that game we arguably scored the try of the season, hadn't it been incorrectly chalked off, via offloading flamboyant brilliance.

With Wigan it's almost a race to get the ball wide. With the way that they defend they get up and in so quickly they shut a lot of teams down before they get started but if you get out of that 'Pocket' there are huge gaps to exploit. Les Catalans absolutely destroyed them with Carney throwing out long passes from 2nd receiver.

Twice though this season they have gotten in quick enough to shut us down and get us going backwards. And for me that's where the game will be won and lost, if we are quick enough we will score points, too many for them to live with us. If they are too quick defensively it will force mistakes and give them too much ball in too many good positions and they will grind through us.

Let's hope the ref keeps a close eye on the PTB, Wigan are terrible for slowing the game down to a snail pace .

Also hope our coach puts some faith in Ward. Leaving him on the bench for 70 mins/ the entire game won't help us.

To some extent that'll be determined by our own attitude. If we can play with the pace we have recently even the most lackadaisical ref will start dishing out the pens for holding down. But if we step down a notch mentally and get a bit lazy then that's less likely to happen.

Who is the ref btw?

That's good defending, getting players into the tackle, but can be risky and energy sapping. Two of the teams that Leeds have struggled against this year (Huddersfield and Wigan) are very good at it. All teams have their own way of trying to do it.