This is brilliant. I had a feeling we'd be without Dufty until into the playoffs, resulting a snap decision to play him in a big game when not match fit. If he's really on the mend this means we can ease him back into it. Look at the difference French is making to Wigan now he's back.

The Fitzgibbon injury looks like he could be heading for a shoulder operation.

The temporary recruitment of Bateman, was a very shrewd move by the club and hats-off to whoever negotiated it.

If Fitzgibbon isn`t available for the play-offs we can cover his absence with Nicholson, and we have adequate cover with Holroyd after him.

I was one of the fans who didn`t like/want Bateman, but I am happy to be proved wrong..........again.

If we finish third and win our home game, am I right in thinking we will be away to the second placed team - most likely Hull KR - on Friday 4th October?

I don't normally go to Friday night games in Hull as there's no trains home from there at that time of night, but I won't be missing the semi final, so need to look at hotel options.

This. We should fear nobody, disrespect nobody and make sure we are just better than our playoff opponents, whoever they are, on the day.

After watching Leigh tonight I think Catalan look our most likely opponent.

I think I'd rather finish 3rd and play Leigh, Leeds or Cats at home, and go to HKR fresh from battle. If we sneaked second I just feel that we wouldn't benefit from having a week off, and would be caught off guard. This year especially, we don't seem to get complacent away from home, and are always up for the battle.

We will be doing it the hard way now, with the Hull KR win last night.

No chance of a 2nd spot.

Yes, although technically I think if HKR lose next week by a big margin, and we win our next two by a big margin, we could pip them.

Just to say I'm happy being in third, were flying under the radar, the pressure is really on kr, and also wigan to keep ahead of kr.

I'm happy were being discounted already

It's a fair point about going into the play offs under cooked. It's obviously extremely unlikely that we'll finish second, but if we do it will mean we've had a couple of landslide wins. When you consider we would then have a week off, and even Saints last Saturday wasn't all that competitive, we would play our semi final having not really been in an intense game since Leigh which would be five weeks ago by that point.

Whoever we played in that situation, I reckon we would probably lose. We need that 3rd V 6th game to keep us ticking over.

whos discounting you ,the grand final will be 2 of wigan,hullkr, and wire,the best 3 teams in the league this year,wire and kr are capable of winning it on the day

Think it’s pretty simple now.

HKR v Leeds HKR win this.
Leigh v Saints
Hull v Catalan

Leigh lose we will play Catalan because as bad as Catalan are they beat Hull. Leigh win we play Saints

If we had beaten Wigan at home, we would be in joint 1st place with a win over London at home for the LLS. Instead we lost 18-19 playing a youthful side.

Fine margins.

Lesson from this? Don't rest players and treat the league with respect.

I know we shouldn't be fearing anyone, but it's not as if I'm going to be playing so I will admit I don't want us to have to play Saints. As bad as they have been recently, they're very very experienced at winning play off games, and you just never know with them.

Hull KR have been brilliant, and they absolutely battered us in August. If we go there in the semi final and lose then it will obviously hurt but will also come with a level of acceptance that maybe they're just better than us at the moment.

Losing that 3 V 6 match at home would be very painful though. I don't want Saints.

Always treat the league with respect but not sure this really proves much about resting players.
Coaches will always rest players & fans will always use hindsight & play down the possibility of injury & suspension. If we had picked our first team players they might have not given their all.
Wigan rested a few too and some of their top players who played probably had Wembley on their minds.