Just hope a controversial early red card doesn’t decide one of the biggest games of the season (especially ours). You take it if it’s the opposition getting one but devastating when it’s one of your own. May the best team win in each game.

The improvement in defence has coincided with the introduction of Bateman. I don't know if it's causal but he does a lot of tackling.

I noticed that after our Wembley loss, there is a different style of play since then that we have adopted.

We are definitely more focused on defence now than we were before.

Maybe Burgess thinks this will give us a better chance of winning at Old Trafford?

I saw a TV interview where he quoted that the teams with the best league defensive records had been successful in winning the GF in the majority of times.

Relishing the chance for a change. Usually i would be like yes lets avoid this team but nope this year im more confident.

However be a tough ask to be saints well anybody really 4 times in a season!.Then onto Hull KR if we get through.

The if we beat Hull and then Wigan no one can say we had easy games and will definately be the worthy winners.

Saints are so difficult to read, we all suspect that there is an excellent team in there waiting to click into gear, but it just doesn’t seem likely based on what we’ve seen over months, not just weeks. Granted they have had players out, but they were almost at full strength last night, and weren’t a million miles off against us really, balancing Dufty & Vaughan missing on our side.

I’d argue that if you had no knowledge of history or context, looking only at the form and evidence you’d prefer to play Saints over any of the remaining 6.

I hope it's a tough grind out win for us. We need Saints to be on form, but just not quite as good as us. This is the best preparation for the following week.