It's a tricky one.

Good win for Wakey, I thought they'd win a tight one but instead it sounds like they were in control 100%.

Jon Wells summed up Roberts perfectly on Sky last night. He'll never make a fullback. Oh and don't bother to even think of putting Eden there. I think Powell needs to get the cheque book out unless Cas have some body in their reserves/juniors?

We do. Calum Turner is the current England u19s full-back and one of the star players in our academy team that made the grand final last season.

Yeah we have one of those in Hooley but he didn't look anywhere near ready against Leeds on boxing day - huge step up. Jowitt was luck as he was in an unfancied team with no great expectations at the time so he came in unoticed - be a lot harder for your boy but then you may not have a choice.

If i was Powell, i'd give James Clare a shot at FB. He only played there a few times for Bradford but was MOM for each one. Yes i know playing well in Championship isn't the same as SL and he probably doesn't have the ball handling skills of Roberts, but he's safe as houses under the highball, positinally excellent too. Roberts is a good player but always has an error in him if played at FB.

Also, how good was Lomax at HB. He looked a million times better at HB (where he first started out before been moved to FB) This is further evidence for me that when a young HB comes through, coaches need to stop making them into FBs just because they come into the line. It worked once with Tomkins. We've a shortage of HBs and when they do, coaches decide they want to make them into FBs!!

It's an interesting debate but there's no way Powell will ditch Roberts from that FB role, at least in the short term. Not when his planning and entire pre-season would have revolved around Roberts. I don't think Powell's instincts are so bad that he's run with a player incapable of doing a job there. He's had a bad game, granted, but if he follows it with a couple of good ones it's job sorted.

Powell said preseason that he thinks Roberts is a natural FB and it's his better position and said he had plans to use him more there last year had Chase not had to leave.

I do recall actually a couple of early games whilst Chase was still there that they subbed Chase on for one of the three quarters, moved Roberts to FB and Hardaker to wing.

The decision to play Roberts at fullback is absolutely baffling for me. There is no way Roberts has the fitness, confidence or communication skills to be even an average fullback. Why weaken the team in two positions by moving Roberts? Add to that he is too squat/heavy & over 30 it's too big of an ask & is grossly unfair on him as a professional to expect him to just pick up the role when we've had plenty of time to rectify the issue.
It's angered me all off season that we have sat on our hands waiting for the Zak circus to leave town.

Not that I'm blaming this single reason for what, will more than likely, be a mediocre season us. We have no size, no plan b & have too many mentally soft players in the squad; we'll be punch drunk all year in my opinion.

Steady on there.
Remember it is Powell that put together last seasons very successful squad and he knows his stuff.
FB though, is a key role and if the players in front of him start to have some doubts in his ability, they may well have a drop in their own confidence.
Having been in East Hull and not seen the Cas game, what is the difference in last season and this and I know that it's very early days.
A decent performance next week and yesterday will soon be forgotten.

Thats right Powell mentioned Roberts being more of a full back, he also said Trueman is now ready for Superleague and deserves his half back position. However based on last nights game they look as though they could be the weakness in the back line which other teams might exploit, the biggest problem though was the pack didn't turn up and didn't look up to speed, its early days though.

I love DP & wouldn't swap him for any other SL coach, but that doesn't mean he is immune from criticism. Last season he regularly played matches, that were over by half time, leaving an unused sub. Anyone with one eye could see the players were being overworked & would burn out at the back end of the year & he doesn't seem to have learned from that.
Mcmeeken hasn't played well since round 6 2017 & looks shattered. Millo clearly shouldn't have played last night & yet both did, why? There was no need whatsoever.

It may appear that this is an over reaction to last nights result, but those who know me will tell you I'm a realist & have been banging the drum for a while.

I think Roberts can do well at full back, he will offer a lot in attack from there but certainly needs to sharpen up and be smarter in defence.

If you are smart enough you don't need to be lightening quick, Wellens is the perfect example of a very good defensive fullback without pace.

The only time he will look good is running attacking training drills in the opposition 20M. Sadly there is more to it than that.

McDermott's done this plenty of times. I wish at least he'd done it in games we'd had won by half time but I can't even give him that. Not sure whether he does it to condition players into pushing themselves harder than those from most other teams do but I'm rarely able to fault the players' efforts when the chips are down. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd done it more last season than Powell did.