where will that leave russell

Tattybye, O'Brien
Thanks for your efforts. You tried your best, but for a club that wants to be at CCFs, GFs, winning LLSs, your best wasn't good enough.

Russell, due to his absence, has proven to be an essential part of our team. He must play.

mark who would you play fb russell or gidders..for me it would be russell gidders with sandow.throw ratch at centre

I tend to agree. I think Smith will have Gidley at FB though as he likes a pivot in that position.

Our best form this year was with Russell at FB, his direct up the ruck style got our exit sets rolling and helped Clark create a dynamic platform.

Fit the tactics to the players we have rather than the players we had.

for me its

1 Russell
6 Gidley
7 Sandow

for Smith its probably

1 Ratchford
6 Gidley
7 Sandow

with russell on the wing

actually i have no idea what he will do.

I'd go Gidley at fullback, Ratchford stand off and Sandow halfback. Gidley's best positions are IMO fullback and hooker, Ratchford can attack pretty similar to how he does now and Gidley and Sandow can do the organising and the kicking. That would give you wingers of Lineham and Russell, which is a pretty strong set of backs if you can find some centres and Sandow wakes up on the right side of bed each morning.

I'd agree (agreeing with Saints fans is happening way too often for my liking) with this except that we would need to either need to bring in two quality centres, or we're going with at least one if not two out of Atkins, R Evans or Monaghan as first choice centres. I also find it hard to imagine that TS would leave one or both of Atkins and Monaghan out of the team.

Admittedly I've not seen that much of him, but perhaps one of Rhys Evans or Toby King would be okay at one centre, providing you signed another? In a strong backline there wouldn't be too much pressure on them at least. Atkins is dire, particularly as a centre, and Monaghan is too old. I think Ratchford is too talented to leave out of the spine of your team, you want your best players getting your hands on the ball as often as possible and if that weakens you in the centres it's a necessary trade off IMO. Particularly given Ratchford isn't a top class centre anyway.

Yes and an interesting point, for all the talk of how we didn't replace Briers there's been very little on how we did not replace Hodgson, and I think not having that sort of full-back has made a big difference. I'm certainly hoping for Gidley at full-back

Pretty sure Kurt has been signed to play full back ,it's his preferred position

FFS we must have the most stupid fan base in SL

I would give O'Brien a run alongside Sandow for the last few games and see if it brings his game on any. If not what more can you do? he is obviously not good enough at this level. It must be worth a try as a Sandow/Myler combination is not on the cards next season.

I think O'Brien's problem is the same as Myler's - they're both support players. They don't have the ability to lead, and the kicking game is sadly somewhat lacking, but alongside Sandow and maybe Gidley at FB then O'Brien might do pretty well. He seems to have a good eye for what's happening, but not the experience to make the right decision.

I wouldn't play GOB. I'd play who ever his future 1st choice hb partner is if available, if he isn't available then Ratchford, either way. It isn't going to be GOB.