The lack of cohesion in the side makes me wonder if the hybrid part time/full time setup is a factor.

Bad choice of words... we need to be in with a shout of top 5 to keep the interest going I think. Not expecting to make it at all but being there or there abouts. If we plummet in the next couple of weeks and have no chance at all then I think intensity and crowd size will drop.

Bit harsh. If we win on Sunday we will almost certainly be only two points off the Top 5

On the other hand, if we lose on Sunday, we'll be almost definitely 6 points off. Probably season over at that point as I count we could claw back 6 points

.

Oh I know full well that we can't market it like that but I'm just trying to add that bit of reality which often seems to go AWOL on the boards.

Despite all the marketing, we have zero,(or as near as) chance of promotion and that, along with the fact that we won't be relegated, hasn't altered since day one, imo. It's a bog standard consolidation year and for what it's worth I'm largely enjoying it. At times....

Players shouldn't be shrinking violets. Anyone who goes on social media surely knows that half the people on it are a-holes, and the rest behave like a-holes, and that includes players. Maybe a weak attempt to seek sympathy and deflect from the abysmal effort at Leigh. I don't condone the sort of mud slung at them, but it is normal, expected and 1-00% predictable. Things have been thus ever since supporter phone-ins first began; hyperbole and insults are the order of the day. It is just that with the spread of social media, anyone can now stick the boot in, by the thousand, not just one guy on the radio. And while there are limits to what you'd get away with on the radio, online you can be as vile as you like.

They should ignore it or not read it if they can't cope. Social media is a toilet for keyboard warriors and trolls, and the amount of sh4tslinging surely shouldn't surprise anybody? The vile trolls are not, the players must surely realise, in any way representative, but most of us will have been very unimpressed by recent weeks even if not descending to extreme vitriol. And instead think on what they would have got if they had put 50 past Leigh.

When John Kear made his post match comments, ("they need to look at the man in the mirror", etc.) I took it that he was clearly signalling he felt some players had not given it their full effort. Is that just me?

Not just you. Didn't he also say no-one getting dropped next week has any cause for complaint

Could be something to do with the team all having the galloping s

Good to see Keyes and Jy back. However not really any eye-catching omissions (DFJ injured, presume Wildie has the bug and I expected Gibson to be dropped for Webster anyway) some very fortunate players still wearing a first team shirt. Second hammering within a month and still Kears not really swung the axe. If we go with Ryan at FB and Grant on wing (how they looked at his performance and thought he still deserved a shirt god only knows) I give up.

Big game this and let's see if the players repay Kears loyalty. Pressures on as I think the crowd could get on their case if we suffer yet another defeat to our nearest and dearest.

Any word on when Green might be back?

Think it was said last week he's out for another 9 week

We really have had some rotten luck with injuries this year.

This D&V virus is a pain. Explains why some are missing this week and why some are still in the squad. Kear was cagey about saying who's had it.

I'd imagine that confidentiality possibly comes into it. It's personal medical information when it come down to it, and whilst injuries and so on have traditionally been put in the press, I'm not certain I'd be too happy if my employer had told the world that I'd had the ermmm D&V that's it!

Grant in the reserves so looks like Pickersgill gets another crack at FB with Ryan back on the wing

Good.