I was having a laugh to myself about these comments at the game yesterday, sounds to me like Smith was getting his excuses in early to take the pressure off the players. We actually look like a team that has had injuries and our half backs are out injured so we are making do with what we've got. Alarmingly and unfortunately, apart from Grix and Westwood and maybe Russell, yesterday's team is as good as it gets for 2015

It is very noticeable when Harrison is not on the pitch. We miss his physical presence and work rate. One of our best defenders for sure.

I know Smith says Gidley will be FB, and know he 'Was' a good FB

Have watched the last 7 Newcastle games and Gidley has been 6 or 7

You can tell what the extent of our injury crisis is by the amount of times Eddie Hemmings mentions it on Friday. If he barely mentions it, then it's not a crisis and we just have to carry on regardless. If it's mentioned every 5-10 minutes, then we know it's a proper crisis and up in the bracket with Wigan or his beloved Saints whenever they have injuries.

I think the squad was missing managed leading into this season. In particular the pack. As far back as last July we knew GRIX would be missing for the first 20 rounds of this year. And then to not even attempt to replace Paul Wood made things worse. Throw in players with injury records like Ben Evans and the Asotasi factor and ypu know players like Hill, Sims,Currie will have to do big minutes and won't be rested. The annoying thing is that there were players available to cover the gaps.

Monaghan and lineham won't both be wings. None of them are going to start playing on the left when they are both right wingers.