I am still expecting a very close game. Tony Smith is no Mug and is more than capable of getting KR to a final whoever plays. A few missing just gives a few others the chance to shine. I am by no means expecting a win here, especially in light of how we have played recently. I do hope though that having what should be our best / most settled spine, and not having to play a short turn round for the first time in three weeks will help us play our best rugby.
I never understand this insular forum stuff like the cas furum and red V, its just an echo chamber and not healthy in my view.

This forum is OK IF everyone behaves themselves, it's when some 'fans' have multiple accounts and others with no interest in the sport try to 'goad' supporters of rival teams. Then there are the keyboard warriors and WUM's. It's no wonder that some fans have their own club forums to discuss topics of interest regards their own teams without, hopefully, the nuisance posters. Looking around these 'independent' boards there is far, far more traffic on these forums and generally the conduct is conducted in a 'grown up manner'. A lot more fans participate in discussion on more topics on Saints, Wigan, HKR, Castleford and even the Salford board.

Bookies seem to have Giants as strong favourites for this game. Not sure I agree with strong at all but I think it's hard to argue that we are not favourites, especially with Coote out in addition to other absences. I still feel this is two closely matched teams & it will all be about who handles the occasion best. I feel very nervous about us having the favourites tag, it's not something we've coped with well previously & I just feel KR's strengths with creative off the cuff rugby & ability to make the most of broken play exactly match our main weaknesses. However, I do feel we'll just about edge this one if we maintain composure & stick to our processes.

our main issue the last few weeks has been we have gone from completing our sets very well, to making some shocking handling errors with the line begging - possibly fatigue? we cannot afford to do that on Saturday and need to take every chance we can to get points on the board as the chances to do so will be few and far between.
our discipline needs to be spot on too.

KR 21-Man Squad
2. Ben Crooks
3. Brad Takairangi
4. Shaun Kenny-Dowall
5. Ryan Hall
7. Jordan Abdull
9. Matt Parcell
10. George King
11. Dean Hadley
12. Kane Linnett
13. Matty Storton
14. Jez Litten
15. Luis Johnson
16. Korbin Sims
17. Elliot Minchella
18. Jimmy Keinhorst
19. Will Dagger
21. Rowan Milnes
22. Will Maher
23. Ethan Ryan
25. Greg Richards
28. Will Tate

our team is out - and its a very strong 21.
only English missing from a sure place in the 17 I would say. Good to see seb back!
Jermaine McGillvary , Jake Wardle ,Ricky Leutele ,Ashton Golding,Tui Lolohea., Theo Fages ,Chris Hill
Danny Levi ,Michael Lawrence, Josh Jones ,Chris McQueen ,Luke Yates ,Joe Greenwood ,Owen Trout
Sebastine Ikahihifo ,Adam O'Brien ,Oliver Wilson ,Leroy Cudjoe ,Olly Russell ,Innes Senior,Jack Ashworth
i can see us going
Tui
jerry
wardle
leutele
innes
russell
fages
hill
levi
greenwood
jones
mcqueen
yates
Seb, trout wilson or bruno and then I think he will go for golding on the bench as he gives us cover at 9 and across the backs in case of injury.
nervous but looking forward to it!

Agreed. We're not a team that can be anything less than our best of we want beat KR. I'm hoping the extra time off from playing on the Thursday helps us get over any fatigue but more importantly allows us to have cleared the flu bug that's clearly affected our performances.

Yes, it does make you wonder if the double whammy of flu lurking in systems and short turn arounds explains our rather lacklustre performances over Easter.
KR will have the crowd behind them- but our lads will be used to that. Hopefully we can keep them quiet- apart from the usual booing that you inevitably get from that lot of course!
Seb and Hill will be nice and fresh in our forward pack, as will Tui.- which will bode well.
Dagger isn’t as dangerous as Coote and is liable to making some silly mistakes at times so hopefully we can exploit that, he may be a bit rusty first game back in a while too so we should look to put him under pressure as well as push their forwards hard.
They like to play the ball about, so we need to stop the offload. We need to play the game on our terms not theirs. The ruck battle will be interesting. Most KR fans seem to think they have that well won. Parcell is a very good player- but so is Levi.

Could be a cracking game this, I love watching KR under Tony Smith, in my opinion they're the most exciting attacking team in SL.

I just hope we have a really good go and don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Whoever wins will have a task in the final, but I'd be happy for the trip to London

Any idea how many tickets we've sold?

on the 13th April we had sold 1000. not heard anything concrete since but we will be way behind the others. I think realistically we should be lucky to have 4500 there.

Completely agree and the rugby they play is the rugby we struggle against. We're so rigid at times we can't cope when different things are thrown at us. I think the clash of styles is what makes it so intriguing and why it should be such a good game.

Lewis and Coote are big misses for us, as is Wood who's been a real find.
It's a really interesting game, whichever side can impose their game will win and that's hard to call.
If King and Abdull perform, we've got a chance but you rightly start as favourites.
Good luck for a healthy return for your lads.

I for one was gutted to see Sam Wood go. You will never get any less than 100% effort from Sam wherever he plays. And he filled in at a number of positions for us over his time. Interestingly Woody was the ONLY half back partner I ever heard Danny Brough openly praise other than his buddy robbo.
It was particularly telling that at the end of last season when the leaving players had been announced such as edwards,, gaskell sezer etc wood was the only player that was still being selected to play in the Huddersfield squad by Ian Watson. That for me speaks volumes.
I think you are spot on in what you say in that in two evenly matched sides who play very differently whichever team gets to impose their way of playing for the largest majority of the game will win.

theyve sold 6000 tickets so how many points head start do they get beofre they start booing ?
we havent sold 2000 but niether have wigan plus town are at home same time nearly