Prediction: Australia will try to shake England out of their rigid, monontous start to the game. They will target Sam Burgess and / or James Graham to try to cause them damage / role England.

Would have thought Williams would have been a shout for the bench. Can cover 6/7/9.

An injury to Gale, Brown or Roby means O’Loughlin will have to fill in at those positions which is not ideal

FB - Currie to RC, Watkins to FB
W - Currie to RC, Watkins to W
C - Currie to C
HB - Heighington to LF, O'Loughlin to HB
H - Heighington to LF, O'Loughlin to H

Not too bad really. If two backs get hurt then we are down to less desirable changes, but that is the same for most teams every week really.

For FB/W/C I think those would be the changes even if you went with Williams on the bench. The issue with HB and Hooker is the questionable fitness of O'Loughlin. Do you want somebody carrying a thigh issue as your backup plan for those positions?

He's either fit to play, or he isn't. Not sure his injury would hit him any worse at 6, 7 or 9 than it would at 13. After all, he wouldn't be taking the line on much if he ended up playing in one of those positions. He has played well in the halves for Wigan when called upon. I can only remember a handful of games when he has played hooker, but he did OK.

I will wear a Hull FC shirt for a day if we beat the Aussies. I'm confident that the closest a Hull FC shirt would ever come to my skin is to wipe my booty.

Depends if we're still in the game with 20mins still to go and how much there's in the tank. Also depends how clinical we are near their line on 4th and 5th tackle. We aren't going to get a lot of chances and it's going to be up to Gale, Brown and Widdop to unlock that Aussie defence or at least get repeat sets. Heighington has the experience under pressure and Bennett obviously doesn't want to change too many things. Bringing in a Williams or Percival at this late stage is obviously one gamble too many. Bennett's first objective was to get us to the final. We did it. His second is to win it and we have to believe he can bring the best out of them.

If you've still got that BO problem stay well clear of contaminating one of our shirts you filthy munter!

We can whinge at the inclusion of Heighington but at the end of the day he is one of 3 current players who have played over 300 games in the NRL (the other two being Cronk and Smith). He's won a grand final and played in plenty of finals footy. He's not particularly error prone either so you've got a player than can play prop, second row or lock, doesn't make many errors and can handle the occasion. If WB wants to play a big bench then he'd get the nod for me.

I do however have an issue with going in with such a big bench but Williams for example looked like a deer in headlights against Lebanon, not sure he could contribute in a WC final.

Look at the squad and then the big game experience;
Widdop - Played in finals footy but not a GF unless I'm mistaken
Hall - Won countless GFs
Bateman - Won a GF
Watkins - Won countless GFs
McGilvary -
Gale - Been to a GF
Brown
Graham - NRL GF runner up
Roby - Won a few GFs
Hill - Been to a GF
S Burgess - Won an NRL GF
Whitehead
O'Loughlin - Won a few GFs

Walmsley - Won a GF
Currie
T Burgess - Won an NRL GF
Heighington - Won an NRL GF

So that's 5 players out of the whole lot who haven't at least been to the biggest game of their respective leagues and then a further 3 who didn't win when they got there. 9 GF/NRL GF winners in that squad.

I look at that list and it's just the 6 and 7 just worry me. The rest of the squad can match the aussies, but Brown and Gale are going to have to go to another level on Saturday.

I agree but I don't think I'd look confident with any conbination of halves. It's our massive weakpoint and will be until either a miracle player along the lines of a Sean Long or a Shaun Edwards comes along or until we have our own halves playing in the NRL (another option is to have the SL be tougher to play in but that's less likely).

Who did Walmsley win a GF with?

Yeah the kicking game has to be at Aussie level or close. We have to turn them round and also get repeat sets...Gale can do it, he put in a couple of lovely kicks in the second half against tonga. Just pumping the ball in the air for an easy take on the 25 will not cut it this week.

Saints 2014

torrential downpours in brisbane ... if its like that on saturday then maybe that could be a leveller

looks bad on the training pitch today