Wigan's centres this year will be Goulding and Hughes/Thornley. I wouldn't say there's much quality there. On the other hand Warrington have Atkins and Monaghan down one side which is a pretty lethal combination (about 50 tries between them last season), I definitely know who I'd rather be up against. There aren't many teams that'll threaten us out wide.

Fringe defence is all about communication, and having an understanding with the players inside and outside you. You can put in all the defensive strategies you like, but at the end of the day it is about making the right decisions and trusting the players around you. Jones is solid defensively, and I would expect Gaskell to defend outside of him, and with Manu defending down that side as well we should be pretty solid down the left, The big question mark defensively will be down the right, and Wakefield, and Reece Lyne found some joy down that side.

I love to see Sia flying into tackles, but he needs to learn to assess the situation first before commenting himself and taking himself out of the game. Wigan in particular were superb at this last year, and had the players out side to exploit any sort of overlap. As soon as they get Tomkins running on the inside shoulder of the centre and the outside of the second rower, he is practically unstoppable and will punish you.

Wigan will miss Carmont hugely in that respect, and I expect Warrington will be the most dangerous this year out wide. With the pace of Monaghan, Ratchford, Atkins and Riley out wide, an with the lines and decoy runs of Trent Waterhouse in particular, they will be deadly if given the opportunity.

It's not just centres, though. Against Wigan it's Tomkins hovering behind the attacking line that puts so much pressure on defenders' decision making (although admittedly teams will be able to focus on Tomkins more now that Carmont isn't there). Against Wire it was mainly Waterhouse who caused havoc in our edge defence.

I was not suggesting that fringe defense is irrelevant, but if it's your one weakness then you are doing pretty well. No team is perfect and teams will improve as the season goes on, but if we start solid in the middle of the park then teams have to be pretty good to beat us.

Also last year I recall Wigan running round our edges, but also directly through the middle of us.

If Sia is going to fly out the line then Tomkins would be an ideal candidate to fly at. Some players and Tomkins is becoming one, tend to get shown a little too much respect and get stood off by a whole raft of players, therefore giving them more time to make decisions and to hold the ball.

When Meli crunched him in the exiles match, he thought twice about running the ball, hit the man hard and hit him legally then see how often he runs down that channel.

ball in the hand the 13 has a good bit of freedom to go where he wants in attack, maybe in defance the 13 moves out wide and defends in the second row keeping things soild and give sia that little bit of freedom not leaving us open or exposed....just an idea to play to all our strenghts

Wilkin's work rate defensively is superb, and along with Roby is our toptackler. If he were to defend in just one particular area we would lose that, and the extra responsibly is Roby's shoulders would make him less effective on attack.

I'd love to know where people get this myth from. He missed more tackles than any other player in our squad last season. If defence was his strength, I'd hate to know what his weakness was. And before you claim he missed more because he tackled more than most, he wasn't in the top 10 for tackles made.

Given the number of times Sia misses those crunching tackles that could be a recipe for disaster. Keep the line tight and don't leave space for him to run through would be my first thought, any big hits would be a bonus.