I was talking to a random in the crowd about Ash Sims, he was moaning about the leg drive and comparing him to Hill.
But i think Ash goes down easy to get a rapid play the ball or draw a penalty.

Agree they're different forwards but both important to us. When Ashton came back on last night we looked much better so it's not just hill. It was great that hill could get a good rest for Friday though, the minutes Cox and King put in will do them both good but hill and sims give us so much more. It makes it even more gutting that Dodds will be missing for so long he would be almost the perfect replacement with Cox.

Responding to an earlier poster. Stef is an integral part of our team.
The guys in the 1 - 13 deserve to be there at the moment, but they know they need to play well to stay there.
There are very few players who can play with his versatility and that makes him really special, although I can understand that it may be not viewed like that in respect international chances.

Im sure Steph may be getting a little frustrated at not starting but this is where he needs to be super professional and do what Jon Clarke did a few years ago when he was dropped to 18th man - be positive and get TS's man of the match award for his support for the rest of the team.

We've had 3 injuries in the last 3 games. Thankfully Stef can cover 2 of those.
In terms of our chances of silverware, if Stef keeps on coming from the bench then it just shows the level we'll have been playing at.

Next week will probably see the same team and starting line up except Clark to start and Philbin (or poss Julien) to come in.

I think Stef may be our 2nd hooker for a while

Westwood back on the bench

I thought BW was another week away but if he's ready then no problem with that.
Quite a good position to be in.

Don't think BW back till April this was said recently by TS. Be silly to rush him back and risk the surgery he had.

Sandow has looked excellent to date and he will probably prove even more effective as the team settles down. We also know that he thrives with Gidley next to him being the organiser, so let's hope Gids stays uninjured, too. Had a look on the Trust in Widnes forum to see what the Comics are thinking about next week. Some good posts with sensible comments. On the other hand one poster reckons that all on the Wire board are 'muppets who think sandow is on another planet' and another who has worked out that both Sandow and Gidley are 'weak defenders' to be targeted. Sandow has his critics elsewhere but I've never seen anyone ( especially Newcastle Knights fans ) question Gidley's defence.

Sandow's defence is so so, brave yes, good, jury is out.

Gidley though...the guy is a machine and how often do you see a halfback defend in the middle?
His fitness doesn't reflect his age either.

As a slight aside, how can a fan of another club question a player who he will only catch on the Sky games or a rubbish 5 minute highlight reel?
There are 11k people who stood/sat in a stadium who witnessed a player who was totally unplayable.

I was walking back to my car and eavesdropping some Cas fans in front the three main topics of conversation being Good Friday, Ben Roberts and how good is Chris Sandow...that was the reason i titled this thread the way i did.

Cas fan A: Seriously though just how fkn good is that Sandow.
Cas fan B: yeah he was definitely the difference today.

It went further than that but even the despondent Cas fans knew they had seen a masterclass of hb play.

I forget who said it, but Gidley missed a tackle in a recent televised game and one of the commentary team piped up with something about 'although great in attack, Gidley and Sandow have defensive frailties'... I've always heard (and seen so far) the opposite in Gidley. I think (from what I've seen so far, which isn't nearly as much as I'd like) Sandow looks much better in defence than I gave him credit for last year, but is still a weak link. That said, I don't care if he flat out refuses to tackle, based on his offence since he's been here.

Best foreign halfback I've seen in p@b since Phil Blake

Around the 60 minute mark it was a last tackle play and the ball made its way to sandow. The way he shaped up it looked for all the world like he was going to plant a bomb. Then came a little chip over. He failed to recover it but wasn't far off his hat trick. The way he disguises the plays is unreal.
The main reason he fell out with Brad Arthur at the eels was he couldn't play "his game" well it looks like he can here.
The start to this season reminds me of when Grey Mackey first came to Warrington. I think we went 10 on the bounce unbeaten before Brian Smith pinched him to go to Hull.
When there was talk of him coming here I said win or lose he will entertain and put a smile in a few faces. He is doing that.

Alex Murphy ( forgive the likely paraphrase here ) was once asked if he was up for doing a fair share of defence including tackling prop forwards. His response: 'It's not my job to tackle prop forwards'.

It was Phil Clarke who said it during that ludicrously biased commentary against Catalan. He thinks missing one tackle makes you an awful defender clearly forgetting the 40plus tackles he put in against Leeds the last time he saw him play. He was equally quick to call Chris Hill for his poor missed tackle on Junior Sau at Salford however was unable to mentioned that Chilly never missed another tackle in the whole game. Chris Sandow will not fit into his stats package so probably not on his radar.

As for MOS don't forget the last 3 have been from Yorkshire due to the voting system and the refusal of the Tykes to vote for anyone from this side of the Pennines.