Said it before, it seems to be unravelling and compared to last season the disruption seems much less to be part of a managed structure and much more liberal bending of rules.

Player welfare come first. But make no bones about it, the game was already in huge decline, is being made to look like a shambles and is in danger of losing sponsors fed up with last minute cancellations, no-shows and bad publicity.

Yep, player welfare comes first, but the future of the sport is a good second and if clubs can, within reasonable parameters, complete fixtures then they should have to do so.

It was days before the end of the season and they were about to change the travel restrictions again and put us into lockdown again. Potentially getting stuck in France or isolating on return and missing the playoffs was a valid concern. If Saints do it this season when they are in a position to play the game I'll hammer them for it.

Had Warrington won the semi final and reached the Challenge Cup final at the weekend, do you think they'd have pulled out and let the semi finalist take their place? Or do you think they would have fielded a team?

Starting to think I would rather read Poky’s ramblings than what you are posting. You are just stirring now, are you still giddy from the weekends result or something.

We did last season, and watched other clubs take advantage of the rules.

And we've seen others take advantage of the rules again this season, notably Cas. Why should we be the only ones putting out a Covid-weakened team?

Coming back to your point. I'd want clubs to put out a team if they possibly can but if no-one else has the good of the game in mind, why should Warrington?

There is also the point that Saddened has not got a bloody clue what is going on inside the Warrington camp. Had we made it to Wembley and had to put an academy side out we would have done.....and won.

If we'd have been playing your lot in the final then we could've played with 9 missing and we'd still beat you seeing as we'd have the ref, the officials and the RFL disciplinary committee all on our side........oh yes, and we've got the hoodoo on you too!!

Stupid comparison to last year. At no point has the sport played games when there were 50k cases a day and rising, last year was played through either heightened lockdown rules or lower cases circulating naturally.

9 players due to COVID, Widdop, Ashton injured, Inglis retired, Butler Robson, & Roebuck out on loan. With Williams coming in I make that 14 players missing out of the squad and I may be missing some. Warrington showed last year we were prepared to play games with many players missing. If you haven’t got the players, you haven’t got the players.

If we can field a team we should irrespective of what other sides are doing

Why does no one post on the St Helens rlfans site by the way? Pop over and give it a go, you may restart the trend?

I don’t disagree, but at least 14 players out (maybe Mulhern & Charnley too?), no reserves and an academy that has barely played? Must be difficult to pull 17 together?

We have form last season vs Hull FC and Cas that we have played in difficult circumstances, maybe these are impossible circumstances? Difficult for the club, they won’t want to say who is out for personal reasons so can’t give the full story to supporters.

Spot on. The sport is looking amateurish at best at the moment. Can people really blame NZ and Australia for not wanting to travel when clubs are postponing games because of Covid cases on a weekly basis?

This.

Out of interest, does the 9 include those isolating as well as positive cases?

Saddened, you won the challenge cup 2 days ago, no ref cheated you out of it, cas didn't cheat you out of it and the disciplinary panel didn't cheat you out of it. Just enjoy it for a while and leave us be. We played the kids last season to get games on, no reason why we would now start using covid to some kind of advantage this season. Its not a masterplan to screw saints out of the grand final by the rest of the superleague and the RFL it's a real pandemic and our club clearly has some issues.

I hope the players are all ok and make full recoveries.

It is what it is, players got Covid so let them recover. Playing under the same rules and restrictions as everyone else so not much we can do, we'll play when we play

With players from both codes of rugby, cricket, tennis, boxers and Olympic athletes all being affected by Covid, it makes me wonder what top tier football is doing so right in terms of Covid management that it's been minimally affected ?

Is it just better cleanliness/testing regimes afforded by weathly clubs, or is there something else going on, in the high money stakes of football that seemingly allows them to be less susceptible to infection and transmission? Otherwise, what can other sports learn from their management/approach?