Will this now be a festival of penalties given the criticism aimed at Childs to date this season?

Hope not.

let's compare the teams. This caused a bit of controversy last year but i thin k the respective league positions showed i was right. Best player highlighted.

Royston Grix
Ainscough Jerry
Platt Leroy
Ah Van Gilmour *
Raynor Hodgson
Kearney Brown
Herbert Brough
Lynch Mason
Diskin Lunt
Hargreaves Eorl
Elima Fa alogo
Whitehead Ferguson
Langley O, Donnell

Addy (at 9 again) Fuey
Olbison Molloy
Kopzcak Griffin
Scruton Patrick


Looks to me pretty close, with us shading it in the backs and the bench. Whilst i like Gilly i think he will have his hands full with ah van which is why i scored them even. Platt has apparently been playing out of his skin but both centres have the ability to make big errors so i would score them even.
mason should hopefully be back but Lynch has to be ahead of him on form this season

As for O'D and Langley i think that O'D is the better and more skilful who loves tackling player but may need things to warm up 6 or 7 o so we see the best of him. I have always liked Langley, big , tough workaholic

We would seem to have the advantage in the kicking game and at half back BUT it all depends on which team turn up. The forwards cannot play like they did at cas and the backs cannot play like they did at Quins.

there are many things however which could change this game. Discipline will be the key. On paper i would back us to win, in reality i could see it as been as much as 3 scores either way if one team does not turn up or cannot maintain discipline particularly with Childs reffing. Any teams pack who gets a roll on will have Childs whistling them down the pitch.


Giants by 8 for me.

I think you pretty much highlighted every best player correctly there, with the exception of Diskin. Lunt is still quite raw as a player in terms of his talent and his development, Disko is revelling in more gametime, trust me.



But, I feel you are pretty correct with the prediction. Personally, I feel our pack can match yours, especially with the addition of Langley back into it. I feel it's the halves and outside backs where you may just edge it.

I'd agree with that, i'd also dispute that Scruton is a better bench spot than Patrick although he has'nt shown the form this season as yet.

I had Scruton and Patrick as equal. Larne Patrick seems to be getting back into things but has limited opportunities this season so far. Has Scruton gone backwards always seemed a reliable player to me

I think it is worth mentioning too that if the game was measured in terms of crowd figures we would still make the play offs. Quins, Crusaders, Catalan, Salford, Wakefield and Cas all had lower crowd averages than us last season.

Ultimately I hope that the parpage going on by some doesn't come and bite the rest of us on the a4se if we get beat this weekend. Bradford like to send a couple of runners close to the ball carrier near the ruck and then look for the offload or the short pass; that's what they used to run over Wakey this weekend gone so we'll need to be on our toes around the ruck and look at dominating the tackles as much as possible. I'd certainly advocate us going with two props on the bench this week rather than just our usual one. Yes we have one of the best packs in the league but Bradfords is bigger than what we've faced last week and that extra prop would ensure dominance throughout the game up front.

That's pretty much spot on imo, although I agree with Aaronbull atm, Disko has been playing well ang getting better with more time. With Elliott's early season form, I'd put him ahead of Ferguson too. Crabtree & Hargreaves are very different types of player so hard to compare, but for the value Eorl has on your team I think you've called that right.

Would have leroy ahead of platt.

I rate Langley very highly however O'Donnell is a superior player and not returning from injury.

O'Donnell had his best game to date against Quins and as the season goes on I think he's going to get better and better. I thought Fa'alogo also gave his best performance of the season to date against Quins.

Think Simpson will get a run this week...

Again i would probably agree]

both of them seem to be getting better. maybe they are feeding off each other and becoming a dynamic duo. feel that we will be seeing a lot more of them this year

As it warms up we will get the best out of them. Once Fa'alogo shaved his head last year, he was away.