I think our academy side play Bradford Bulls about 16 hours after the Castleford game has ended, so I doubt the academy lads will play 2 games in 16 hours.

It will be an interesting game, the other one is how Leeds will go against Toulouse nervous time for Hethrington.

It would be far better to play 3 games on good Friday and 3 on Easter Monday, rather than have 2 full lots of fixtures.

Yes, the clubs need the revenue but the after effects, plus those in the actual Easter games, make a right mess of the games and more importantly, the players.

I,ve got a gut feeling that’s what they will do next season, far better quality games over the bank holidays the likely outcome.

I agree, at the end of the day, this is a squad game and flogging your first fit 17 when you have other players available is ridiculous. The great team of Manchester Utd in the late 90s chopped and changed between the competitions to keep legs fresh. You have a squad, use them!

The flip side of this is, do the paying punters want to pay £25 to watch a reserves game ?

I'm good with using the squad depth through the season, due to injuries and suspensions etc but, having to use kids because the clubs are being asked to play with a 4 day turnaround or 3 times in 8 days is just wrong.
I agree that to a point, Woolf is doing the right thing but, it skews the competition.
Giving Cas (or anyone else) 2 easy points isn't really good for the game, is it and it's on the back of having to play too many games in too short a time frame.

Surely, as far as it can be achieved, we all want to see the best players matching up and not men v boys.

With cash getting tighter, people just wont turn out to watch

The decision to field a virtual academy side is just wrong even though we all know the reason why they are doing it with a semi final on the horizon.
Would football allow this to happen?
Saints should be issued with a very substantial fine for compromising the integrity of the game.
Toulouse in particular could argue that a team have been awarded 2 points and I am sure that if the Rhinos lose tomorrow we can expect to hear of their anger.
Teams may have to field weakened sides due to injury but this is ridiculous and should not be allowed to happen.
The games governing body should hang their head in shame for allowing it to happen.

The only world class coach in SL is protecting his players from an absolutely shocking decision from some nobodies who run SL who have no care for player welfare. As for a virtual academy side (sic) pretty much most of them are in the first team squad

Don’t blame Saints for having such a stacked first team squad

It’s not an academy side our academy side play Bradford Bulls less than a day after the Castleford game. I suggest you go on the Saints website and observe who is in the first team squad for clarity.

For those moaning, ask yourselves a question - your team is top of the league, being asked to play 3 games in 8 days. You have a cup semi final the week after the third game. Would you be wanting your coach to rest the majority of the semi final squad for the 3rd game, regardless of the opposition, or would you want to flog your first choice players and risk injury/fatigue potentially costing you a cup final spot? I guarantee most would rest their first choice players. Saints have earned the right to do as they please in my opinion. Plus, anyone thinking it’s gonna be an easy game for us needs to think again. Young, fresh legs, from the best side in Superleague by a mile (and have been for the last few years) against a, potentially, fatigued side that couldn’t hold the ball on Monday if their life depended on it? I’m hopeful we’ll get the points but it’s gonna be far from easy. There’s probably a fair number of future England international players that we’ll see at our place tomorrow.

stains have done the hard mileage at the beginning of the season to get themselves to the top so why not rest your players, I can only hope that we now use the same principle as we aren't finishing top we are very unlikely to even get into the play offs so only leaves protecting our selves from being dragged into relegation battles we have a little breathing space so use it

It's a squad game, Saints have got themselves in a position to be able to utilise that squad as Woolf obviously thinks this is giving them the maximum opportunity to do the treble.
He's also building for the future by giving the younger players a look at what a first team game day looks like whilst he also gets the opportunity to see where they are with their development.
Some of them might have absolute stormers of a game which in turn makes the current incumbents of that position have a bit of a think about their own motivation.
I'd love my club to be in that position.

Ha ha, the great m/u kept legs fresh. I could play soccer 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

I guess we'll see how "stacked" it is after your game at Cas ??

I think it is a weaker side than it would have been, but with quite a few already injured there is little room to rotate.

Grace injured
Hopoate injured
Dodds injured
MATA’UTIA injuried
Sironen banned
Hurrell banned
Knowles banned or injured
Roby getting his OAP bus pass