Emmitt gone to pursue his dream in Oz..Noz.

Hear hear
Some people seem desperate to leap onto any conspiracy theory based on anything at all. Ridy has been playing all season sometimes with injuries, we've got a young lad in Reynolds playing excellently yet still learning the game & 2 new halfbacks in Drinkwater & Burns who need to get to know the team & our style of play. Dropping Ridy for a couple of weeks doesn't mean he's had some big fall our & is on his way out. It means this year we've got a coach who understands flogging some players all season while not giving others any game time at all until everyone is either dead on their feet or not at match fitness when you need them isn't the way to succeed.

Riddy isn't being rested, or kept fresh for the 8s, he's being kept out of the side by two new half backs. The merits of signing two new halves is a different debate, but lets not try and kid ourselves about the situation with Riddy.

As for the matter of resting and rotating players, we find ourselves in a position where the team is virtually picking itself, with all but 18 or 19 players either injured, out on loan or banned. For the amount of money ploughed in this season, that's not a great situation to be in. Just hope we're dont end up going into the 8s with our forwards, who are our main hope, being shattered.

Trouble is there's that many rumours started by so many different people (including the RL "Press"icon_wink.gif if the club went around denying them all there'd be no time to do anything else, especially as we only have a full time staff of 6 on the non playing side. Times & situations change week by week so answers will change. Ridy will be considering his situation for next season, his contract is up, he'd be daft not to & he's probably not decided what to do yet hence all the rumours & the lack of facts. He's probably not happy at no longer having a guaranteed start. However I'd expect both Ridy & Jukes to be professional enough that none of that matters with the day to day stuff. I really do think some people are desperate to see conspiracy in anything & everything & reality is nearly always a lot simpler. We'll probably hear something about Ridy's future soon enough but until (& possibly even after if it's revealed before the end of the season) then I expect Jukes to be developing his plan for the Super 8s & I expect Ridy to do what he's done for years & be a great general for our team.

The majority of rotation has been done using loanees. How have we ended up in this predicament? Will be a headache selecting the squad this week.

No headache for me. Burns and Drinkwater 6/7 for the rest of the season. If Riddy is not up for playing, then we have an opportunity to have settled halves.

We've seen the class of Burns and Drinkwater in phases and these phases will grow the more game time they have and the more they learn the plays.

I was referring to the squad as a whole.Not just 6/7.The word settled being the problem this season and games running out.

The crunch with the loaders will be whether we will be allowed to keep them for the middle 8s. Burns I think is different but Evans and Fash could be with us for the duration of the middle 8s or back with their clubs. That decision is really out of our hands and in the hands of the parent clubs.

Entering the 8's our crop of forwards will read.

Props - Moimoi Spencer Acton Weston Hock Hopkins
Back row - Maitua Hansen Whiting Patterson Dixon
Hookers - Higham Hood

I don't see the need for loans unless we have another crisis.

Half backs were poor on Sunday - fact

We looked disorganised - fact

Do we keep trying and hoping the combination gets better - yes give them 3 more matches

Is it the best combination - time will tell.

Does Riddy still have a part to play - in my opinion yes.

Will Riddy play a part - probably not but hope I'm wrong

As Johnny Nash used to say, There are more questions than answers.

Toronto are participating in a League, based in a country in Europe, and about 3000 miles from Toronto.....what's wrong with that ?