Well, of the young forwards we have, Peposhi is ahead of the likes of Bateman, Gill, Leake and Bates. I would expect him to get gametime first. 

Backs, a bit trickier. Rayner on the wing, Sam Ackroyd in the halves (we have a lot of halves though), Balback - FB I think - we have 2 really good ones already. 


I would think Peposhi might get the nod into the 17. 

If Peposhi gets a run of games, I think he could/should take that 13 shirt off Hallas. I really like his passing game from 13. He just needs a good run in the side to show what he can do. 

Over the past 30 odd years we only tend to play the kids when there's a particularly bad injury crisis or lack of cash meant a change of focus away from the transfer market.    I think it's realistic to expect one to come through and "make it" each year but since Jayden Myers we've not seen anyone break through properly.  

No Keyes in the 21 man squad. I hope he hasn't picked up an injury.

Holmes
Okunbor
Blake
Gill
Hooley
Meadows
Lilley
Lawrence
Ott
Doro
Fulton
Gee
Hallas
---
Scurr
Waine
Michael
Peposhi


Liu, Mason, Bayliss and Hurrell to miss out this week.

He's not been in great form lately.  Maybe he's been dropped?  I bet Nobby plays Hurrell too.

The physio went on to him at Barrow early in the 2nd half, but he finished the game fine. So I'm not sure. 

Keyes now confirmed to be out with a knee injury.

All pretty frustrating isn't it. 


The same issues seem to be repeating themselves and over 3 coaching regimes and an enormous amount of playing staff. 


In somewhat of a defence to the players and coaches, it must be difficult with some full time players and some not. 
It's hard to get stuck in to and fix some of these issues as a group with this set up. 


We are still 3rd (joint second) with a huge part to play in our own destiny. 
I know I tend to be glass half full and really hope they kick on for half 2 of the season. 

One interesting point Brian Noble mentioned in his pre-match comments was that we've only really been comprehensively beaten once all year (Toulouse away). Our other 3 league defeats have seen us lose by 2 points twice and 8 points. Like others have said, we aren't getting blown away by teams and it sort of feels like we are the masters of our downfall by losing so narrowly. Cut out the self-inflicted errors and mistakes and these narrow loses will hopefully turn into wins.

I agree with all that.   It's so frustrating when losses are down to things where we aren't learning.  One day we'll get through a game without mucking up receiving the ball from a kick off or by needlessly being forced into touch or dropping the ball and then compounding it by giving away a penalty.    When we manage that we'll win those close games because it's those things that are killing us.  


I'm still worried about our left side defence too, especially with Armitage now out.  I can't help but think that if we'd given Tindall a contract he'd be going well outside Armitage at centre (his best postition) with Gill and Taufua as back up, but that ship sailed long ago - sorry to keep harping on but we left ourselves way too short of options in the outside backs.

I don't disagree. However the facts are we've come out the wrong side of every single "big/important" game, even the Cas game, if they had have had a goal kicker we'd have blown that as well. That's my worry. The big games are fine margins and we seem unable to know how to win these. Teams that wins things come out on the right end of those fine margins. Good teams don't. 

I've used Okunbor as an example. The Barrow game he was easily our biggest metre maker. Worked hard. Scored a try. Played well. But yet again he came up with crucial errors. Another dropped catch from a kick (if I remember rightly Barrow scored from it) and a dumb unforced offload in our own 20. Again it's been a pattern. York at home. Drop kicked on yorks final set. Catch it we win.Then just got run around from the scrum. Barrow at home. Again a howler.  Games at the top are/should be close affairs so I don't quite but the "we're only losing by 2 points" we should be looking at it as we're consistently losing by 2 points against anyone decent. 


Tonight's irrelevant as the opposition are poor. But next week will make or break our season.  If Noble hasn't found the answers next week then I don't see how he will going forward. He alluded to more loans again in the interview if Gill or Liu couldn't come back from Batley which I found a worry as they're rarely the answer. 

Think departures and injuries have left us weaker than last year and in some ways the year before too.   Losing Doro was a big blow.  Pele was a frustrating player at times but we miss his go forward and Scurr's been out injured a fair bit.  That's left us short of go forward.   The players we've recruited to replace Baitieri and Segeyaro haven't been as good either.  Losing Taufua has also made our left side a lot weaker defensively and meant having to play Armitage out of position.

So Noble has had his challenges, arguably more than EOC had.