I think a more pertinent question is how far down the league would we fall if we lost Austin to injury.

True, Nat Wood was a quality player for us for 4 seasons.

At this stage the better comparison for Austin is Chris Sandow in the first half of 2016. Sandow couldn't maintain it (partly due to injury to be fair) and his influence tailed off by the business end of the season. If we are to be SL champions we will need to beat better teams than Hull.

The only game he didn’t look influential in was against Saints. The game where our forwards got battered into submission.

Let’s not also forget that he’s pretty much organising all attack on his own as well as talking on the line. Even Price made it clear that the plan was to have Brown organising and Austin carving up with his running. That’s pretty impressive to me.

As much as I liked Wood he doesn’t have anywhere near the all-round game of Austin.

I’m looking forward to assessing him against the 1st placed team when our forwards match them. Might be a different story.

It's worrying that we keep having this issue of our forwards being battered in to submission.

Happened in the Challenge Cup Final last year and then in the Grand Final as well, these were given on here as the reasons why Patton and Roberts were not able to dictate those games.

Perhaps an overhaul is needed - is it time to take a hard look at old favourites like Hill, Cooper, Westwood, Currie and ask are they able to cut it against the very best packs? What about BMM and Hughes - would Saints and Catalans take them?

Are some people really saying that after 14 games? FFS the phenomenon of recency is getting silly now. He's made a very good start - thats all we can say for now.

A number of posters have been saying we need to strengthen our pack for a while. Hill, who once stood out, is nowhere near as effective as he was in his pre Captaincy days.

Our pack of 2019 should not even been discussed on the same URL as the 2011 one.

Morley (capt)
Monas
Carvell
Anderson
Westwood
Harrison

Grix
Wood
Cooper
Solomona

I think we need a bigger guy on the bench for sure. We lack something without Hill and coops.

Never understand why Hilly and Coops go off at the same time. Does SP not see the impact it has on the game like we do.

Come on, you know I was referring to one game And in that game we did clearly lose the forward battle so inevitable that Austin wouldn’t get a decent platform for us to see how he copes against the top opposition.

Although for what it’s worth I do think we need one more decent big forward for when Hill and Cooper come off. It IS noticeable and tends to coincide with our lull periods in games.

I would say give daz clark or Austin captaincy

I think our pack isn’t too far off. We are lightweight in the second row, but if Currie finds his attacking form that would be a positive. BMM should certainly be at least the equivalent of Solomona, but I’m not convinced he has ever been full fit since arriving. J Clark looks to be a machine, but again lightweight. A Waterhouse style 2nd row would make all the difference to our pack.

I think we need to use BMM as Salford did. He started a few games before his rest and I hope it continues. He showed at Salford he can do a lot more minutes than he has at Wire.

Yeah i'd rather start with Hill And Tasi, and have Cooper coming off the bench when Tasi comes off. Then when Hill is rested Cooper will still be on the field, we do seem to lack go forward when they are both off and it seems to be the same for each game where we start to ship points. That's how it seems anyway i could be wrong though?

Bmm is only good 5 yards out and with a small guy in front of him. Too lazy and work shy, Currie since coming back has been very poor as well.