The ride is becoming an uphill battle again. The selective games everyone is banking on are far from winning at present.

It is, and not looking pretty I must admit. However, we wanted the challenge and had to take it on when offered

In all honesty with a fully fit 17 I think we can compete with the likes of Wakey, HKR, Salford etc, and get the wins - also think there are more signings to come if we find the right players

Fair comment. Getting the right players is the difficulty. I’m not sure we have the time to sort it, which was always going to be the obstacle.

As you said a few more is what is required. A must.

Atomic for me it’s not loan players we need , it’s signings , are they on their way .?aim not sure ,I’ve said a couple of months ago did we sign most of our squad as Championship players ?I think we did , and now we find around 4or 5 just not SL standard , we could try to replace them , but the existing players would want compensation I’m sure .
It’s hard life in SL but one we all wanted ,I have every faith in Derek and JD but the time is now to act , not in June or July , I remember Abram bringing in loan players , it doesn’t work , yes it helps at times ,you need real signings though .Fridays game at Salford will be extremely difficult , we will have to see how they fair this afternoon in France .Wowever they put 68 past Widnes last week .

Flower Sidlow Peteru and Ioane will compete with most of our peers in the basement. Back row needs at least one more. Peats looks the part and would you throw Bell into the halves. Gelling and Thornley put size out wide and Elliot goes into FB. Sau and Russell on the wings. Here’s to seeing that soon

I can’t argue with any of this , except maybe the Bell into the halves , though your statement could be a question .?Gelling and Thorniley will add size and strength to the team , a fully fit pack will more than hold their own against Salford , Peats and Hood take care of themselves , but apparently Mellor is injured again , and how long before Sau and Ellis are back is unknown .
JD has said in a post match interview last night that Fridays game is a MUST win , a bit of pressure there then , but we shall see , it’s not all doom and gloom , hopefully the lads can’t get some self belief going .Cmon Leythers .

Ian, I believe Sau will be available on Friday. We have 5 halves in the camp and 4 of them should be playing in the championship, and the other one (Ellis), who is out for another 4 weeks, is the only one just about Superleague standard. Apart from Hood & Peats in the spine, it's anybody's guess who will play 1,6,7,13.
Like you've already said Ian, Action must be taken now, not June or after. It's gonna be tough.

I would only disagree slightly about Sau. We can not pin our SL hopes on a 34 year old centre. One that was hardly setting the Championship alight. I would question if he still has the hunger in him at this very late stage of his career.

I would like to know just what injuries both Sau and Ellis have sustained.

Looking at how much more energetic we looked with Peats (who has Impressed me) in the halves against Castleford id be tempted to leave him there, he looked much sharper and busy in the middle.

Bell looked great and clearly has great hands and looked dangerous everytime he had the ball, ill guarantee we lose him after May 1st transfer date, we need specialist back rows, not props playing out of position. Easier said than done I know but what a difference another Reni Maitua would make.

We released Sammutt for Wallace

Some good points there Binosh. Who would you have interchange with Hood?

Peats into the halves and Matty Wildie to interchange with Hood, unless he is out injured.

Team I would like to see for Friday assuming all are fit
Russell,
Sau, Thornley, Gelling, Simms
Bell, Peats
Sidlow, Hood, Flower, Hellewell, Peteru, Thompson

Interchange; Wildie, Gerrard, Mason, Ioane

Not a bad choice that pal, I'm just worried about all the shuffling but, if it works, and we get the result, I'll be the 1st one to praise you.

I honestly can’t believe we didn’t retain Gregg McNally for the money he was probably on, got slated for his defence but Brierley is just a joke, consistently out of position and his tackling is at FB has been embarrassing. Gregg’s link play and 3 on 2 passes in good attack are what we need right now as we look so clunky & slow.

I agree,and we've not done any better with our dismal recruitment either but,can i also say that we've chopped and changed in the halfbacks so much for 5 years thinking if we spend more we'll get better. Our last best halfback pairing was Riddy & Drinkwater (2016), yet we can't seem to grasp what is required at 6 & 7. If Degsey has the the money to spend, he should have got a top quality (hopefully NRL) half back from the off. It now looks like we are trying different permutations until we get the right balance. It just might end up being too late before we get there. Let's see what happens hence forth.

Wallace came with a huge rep, maybe him and peats could be the missing links with Bell at 13. I would go peats and Reynolds on Friday with Bell at 13 and run with 1 hooker.

Wallace needs to learn he’s not on holiday.

We have had a rough deal when we got the nod
The players we have are here now and they need our support
I think we do need about 3 more to help us out when we have injuries
I go with utility players and a winger
I think with the props we have enough and when all fit well be ok
We are ok with the FB till Elliott is ready Ryan isn’t doing a bad job
When we get all the players back a bit of competition for places will help us
Also fans back will be a big boast

I agree, we deserve to be boasted about.

Ha ha very funny you

Quote ="Kennedy"I agree, we deserve to be boasted about. '" Have you got your season ticket? https://leighrl.co.uk/wp/v2/blog/2021/0 ... IecD2eHMBA

Quote ="Kennedy"I agree, we deserve to be boasted about. '" Have you got your season ticket? https://leighrl.co.uk/wp/v2/blog/2021/0 ... IecD2eHMBA

I will be picking ours up this week

Thought you would have had priority delivery..

Bump.

You must read the thread from the start. Take note when it started.