He appears happy and willing, maybe even too happy and willing, to admit to his mistakes, yet so far has shown little evidence of a willingness or abilty to correct those mistakes.

Bridge is a half, IMO not a particularly good one, but a half nevertheless.
Monas might think of himself as a half, and may have been signed to play there, but based on his 2007 form for Manly he is a far better hooker.
Higham can't play 80 minutes, is it a coincedence that we have collaped so spectacularly in the last 20 minutes in both games this season.

I'm no expert but the answer seems pretty obvious to me!

Thank god for that



Ive been saying for ages that Monaghan is a hooker, and a very good one at that.

Bridge would prove to be a good asset at half back if he can stay fit and focused.

The thing that worries me though is that monas may have only agreed to join the wire if he was guaranteed a starting place in the halves.

Also Higham may have a similar agreement with the hooker position.

Very suprised that people rated Riley's performance from last week. I thought he was poor and I'd replace him with either Hicks or Reardon (preferably the latter if fit)

Keep Bridge at centre with King on the left (King didn't do much wrong last week in my opinion).
Gleeson and Hicks on the right, but possibly PJ on the wing if Hicks at fullback

Keep the halves

Bring Clarke in as starting hooker and interchange with Higham.
Keep the props but if Carvell isn't fit bring in Harrison as an interchange with Rau starting.

Second row Landerson and Mitchell with Vanderson at 13 and Blythe on the bench and Wood also.

Job done.

I predict the same team but swapping Hicks for Riley & Johnson for Westwood.

Agreed, Riley was poor on Saturday and seems to escape a lot of criticism in that performance. I just don't get the Riley love-in.

Is Jon Clarke ready for a return? Don't underestimate his influence on our defensive structure.

And Wainwright, I think our left side defence would be massively improved if Wedge was there

Totally agree, it had become trendy to bum Riley and slate Penny when Penny has much more of an upside.

Oh to be an important yet completely unappreciated cog in the Wire machine!

Personally I'd leave Riley at full back. He didn't have a great game but then who did. Imo we should leave him there and let him develop his game from there. We may aswell keep our right sided attack of Gleeson and Hicks playing together if the left isn't getting any consistency of who is playing and to what standard they are performing. King didn't do too bad on the wing last week and i'd probably leave Bridge at centre for now although I'd rather see him at 6.
When is Reardon fit? How do you think King centre and Reardon as his wing would work? We all know he doesn't play well with Penny and god knows how long he'll be out of favour with Jimmy.
I still think we should be rotating our hookers. As mentioned on another thread Higham tires after 60 and is someone the opposition are targeting so maybe a return for Clarke from the bench this week. Wouldn't mind seeing Mitchell get a run in the squad if as expected we lose Benny for a few games.

Riley
Hicks
Gleeson
Bridge
King
Briers
Monaghan
Morley
Higham
Carvell
L. Anderson
Mitchell
V. Anderson

Rauhihi
Wood
Clarke
Blythe

From RFL web site:

They are also facing up to the likelihood of being without new signing Garreth Carvell, the former Hull FC prop, for a lengthy period after he damaged knee ligaments on his home debut.

“We’re still waiting on the final scan results but it looks like he won’t be featuring for us for the next few weeks,” said coach James Lowes.

“He had the scan yesterday and we’re waiting for the specialist to get back to us.”

Looks like you've lost Carvell for a few weeks but it says that Clarke is back in the 19.