Gardners kick returns aren't even that good.

Percival is in the line up. Why not Swift?

Interesting thought. No idea how well he reads a game though, have you? I haven't seen enough of him to have any idea.

Perhaps Swift is further behind in development and looking fatigued either physically or mentally in training? There may be a number of reasons

I haven't to be honest, but he does seem to share a lot of Lomax's characteristics, from what I have seen. Makinson is more solid than spectacular. I reckon Swift would be the latter.

A Challenge Cup tie away to a side that beat us convincingly isn't the right place to go messing about with positional changes and blooding kids in new positions. IMO it's basically our season on the line at the weekend. We don't have it in us to win the Grand Final, so knuckling down and trying to do a professional job and have good cup run is the best we can do.

Except Swift played HKR on the wing two weeks ago (and scored) and he played again on the wing last week, so he has been blooded and the messing about actually comes with re-introducing Gardner after a few weeks' absence.

SaintsFan has picked up on the first point Swift has played recently and done well.

Gardner's wing value is hyped up. A recent post made the point that his only value is playing like a forward
and as such that is where he should play (if at all). I agree with this.

On the second bit - it is make or break for the season is spot on. It's CC or bust.

The news of cladding and links to Long (that clearly encourage speculation as to a temporary playing return)
suggest the Saints PR machine are aware of this and are preparing distractions and contingencies already.

He is a stand off by trade (i'm not sure how our reserves have managed to cram so many supposed standoffs into their ranks over the years - Wheeler, Gaskell, Lomax, Swift, Charnock), but I remeber when we played away at Widnes last year (when we won in the last second), in the reserve match Swift was playing full back with Ashe at #6.

From my rugby union experience, if your full back got injured, it was often a prime chance to blood a young standoff. Lots of similar skills needed, but the full back has that little bit more space and time on the ball, which is invaluable when a guy is stepping up a level.
Obviously there are added pressures, like fielding kicks etc. We'lljust call that character building.

But a hell of a lot better than Swift's....

Gardner and Meli are our best wingers, so we should use them in a game that could make/break our season. It's not rocket science.

He wasn't that impressive. He scored, but Josh Perry scored two vs Cas...it really doesn't equate to much when analysing a player's performance in one match. On the whole Swift was pretty average vs Hull KR.

He did take his oppotunity to score an 80m try though. One that Gardner may well not have.
I wasn't at the match, so I didn't see his performance as a whole.

That's fair enough, but on the whole he wasn't that impressive IMO. Took his try well, but it was basically a free run after a sloppy pass.

I feel dirty saying this but.......I totally agree with Saddened in this thread.


Urgh.

It's quite possible Gardner may have intercepted (although I have never seen him do so) but there is no way he would have scored that try! The opposition would have caught him easily.