The last few play offs have been an event to forget for us and Price was lucky to be given this year in my opinion. When it was announced that he was leaving, I questioned the reasoning behind announcing so early, what this would do to the psychology during the season and whether he would be AS bothered.

We enter tomorrow nights play offs at home vs 6th place and interestingly with a manager who is not only off, but off back to a new job the other side of the world.

That being said, I now think it might relieve some of the pressure on Price. Those crunch decisions that could lose his job don't have the weight anymore. I'm hoping the psychological effect is actually a benefit in these play offs, a bit less reserved or rather a bit more adventurous when needed. I THINK Ashton came on with 5 mins to go last year when the game was all but gone. Would pressure-less Price bang him on with 15 to go, knowing he's outa here either way.

Will Ashton even make the bench tomorrow? I’d have him in there somewhere, but the only place I can see it happening with Price is replacing Charnley or Thewlis. Guess we’ll see. I like it when we struggle to fit good players in though, it shows we’ve done something right.

I just hope he doesn't name a 17 man squad and only play 16, he's done that too many times now. Be interesting to see the bench tomorrow, Mulhern and Hill should start with Philbin off the bench. But who we will pick benchwise needs to be bang on.

nothing so far, or recently suggests he's going to veer from type

In last season's play-off, vs Hull, I'm pretty sure it was Mamo, not Ashton, who was left on the bench for 75 minutes.

Watching Wigan last night would tip in favour of putting Ashton on the bench. They had nothing to threaten from deep and no real threat of doing “something” that would just make a try, even off the bench.

I doubt HKR will be able to park the bus as well as Leeds did, but in play offs you need something extraordinary to sneak through sometimes.

If he’s on the bench and it’s tied on 70 minutes, him coming on would, if nothing else, cause a bit of stress for the fullback and wingers who have to factor in a kick and chase. He also has that knack of buzzing around the offloaders, Hill/Currie could find an offload and he could just streak away.

If would be foolish to put Walker/Longstaff/Austin/Sita on the bench as that 4th sun to only get 10-15 minutes max and not have him instead.

Definitely needs to be bang on. But choosing your bench is never easy and is often criticised after the event.
Do you go for ...4 big forwards (if you have 'em and they are any good) or 3 forwards and a hooker, or two forwards a hooker and an exciting back, or use someone who can fill in at hooker ... what do you do?
I did see a team a few weeks back have to play the last few minutes of a game with a player short as they had used up all their interchanges ... now that is a sin.
Lots of options this week and not easy to predict how the game will pan out.

Thats not uncommon, most teams use their last subs around 65/70 minutes mark.

Not clever though to make your last interchange in the 65th minute and to gamble on having no injuries in the last 15 minutes.

What you gonna do if you've got a prop blowing out his bottom, missing tackles and giving penalties away.

If you've had several injuries earlier in the game and players can't come back on.

It might not be clever, but you just might not have a choice

I get the baffling use of just 3 subs being used, but there's only 10 interchanges. As I've posted before, two props go off and come back on again, which uses 4 of them them. If we get 2 others taking a breather and returning, that's another 4 done. That only leaves 2 for any other eventualities, and if a forward is needed more than a back, then that's how someone keeps the bench warm for 80 minutes.

Due to selection problems this year we have had a few occasions were complete rookies and the odd surplus back has been left twiddling their thumbs and I think that is understandable. We haven't actually been leaving Adrian Morley, Gareth Carvell or Paul Wood out.

One or two seem to crave for 4 big forwards on the bench ... but to be honest we have never/rarely had four good 'uns available.
I thought Leeds had a lively looking bench last night ... I think I would plan to give all them a bit of a go.

Me too, I'm hoping Widdop and others may get taken off at the end of the game, should we have played well enough to allow us to do so.

Tony Smith (Leeds) and Nathan Brown (Saints) both won Grand Finals while working their notice.

Call him Sita, and extend his contract.

Am I warm?