Huddersfield looking to make it 7 on the bounce against cas on sky on friday.
quite a few Casfans fancy themselves for this one having narrowly beaten Catalan last week. Apparently "the only reason I think Hudds are up there is because they play safe". " i dont actually rate Huddersfield and think they have been lucky in a couple of their wins. I certainly think we should of beaten them last time." "Personally i dont think Huddersfield are that good they have just come out on top in more of their 50/50 games".

cas squad has a few ex giants in there, no doubt kenny will be trying to prove a point - lets just frustrate him!
1.Niall Evalds
2. Derrell Olpherts
4. Jake Mamo
5. Bureta Faraimo
6. Jake Trueman
7. Danny Richardson
9. Paul McShane
10. George Lawler
11. Kenny Edwards
12. Adam Milner
13. Joe Westerman
14. Nathan Massey
15. George Griffin
17. Mahe Fonua
22. Daniel Smith
23. Greg Eden
24. Cheyse Blair
25. Suaia Matagi
28. Brad Martin
33. Jason Qareqare
37. Alex Mellor

21 man squad is as follows
pryce, jerry, golding, tui, levi, bruno, jones, mcqueen,yates, english, greenwood, trout, seb, wilson, leroy, L senior, I senior, russell, mason, hewitt, king
I expect the same team as last week with king coming in for leutele. possibly seb to play - but who to rest??

tui
jerry
leroy
king
senior
pryce
russell
bruno
levi
wilson
jones
mcqueen
yates
english, trout, greenwood, golding

We will undoubtedly have a blip at some point, and this may be it, but barring that we have too much for this Cas team. To say we play safe is to underplay our game massively, we showed against Hull KR that we can play rugby when given the opportunity. The way we play is high percentage with some great structure near the line when we get there, that is really hard to play against, and you need to be able to match the grind and be patient to match us. Other teams just don't like the fact that it's not as eye catching as the more flamboyant sides but it's far more effective. As i said earlier in the season the only team i really seeing us have very little chance of beating is Saints, because they do what we do, but better, and with far more flair.

I think the “safe” option will suit us and our pack on that small pitch. We have been making meters for fun so i would hope to spend a lot of time in castlefords half. They don’t really have any player I “fear” although they have some good players- but no one that you think “oh god” when they get the ball. We now have the pace to match theirs out wide and certainly the power in the middle. Their halves don’t particularly seem to be firing and Levi is certainly a match for mcshane.
Evalds is possibly their biggest danger- but not sure how match fit he will be following a two month layoff.
But like you say we are likely to have a blip at some point, and Cas is never an easy place to go.
With saints v Cats this weekend it’s a good opportunity for us to try make ground against at least one team around us in the table and keep third place. But I expect wigan to beat Wakefield with ease.

Just to add a different perspective, I think you've been class this year and can definitely make the GF. You were criminally unlucky in the C cup final. The likes of Yates don't take a backwards step, McQueen should be on the shortlist for MOS, with Innes Senior you've got a winger for life who could maybe feature internationally 1 day. I do think Leutele will be a big miss. You absolutely deserve to be top 3 and the response from losing the final has been nothing short of sensational. I was a bit surprised with the King Wardle swap.

Regarding the game Friday, well we've been utterly inconsistent all season. Infact our game at your place sums our season up. I can understand why some of our fans are confident because our home form is decent. I can see it being a close game but I'm not sure we're at a level yet where we beat 2 top 4 sides in a week and I think the confidence you guys have could see you sneak a close one.

Think we were all a bit taken aback by the king wardle swap- and I bet wardle is kicking himself now as he could have been playing in a well established top three side for the next few weeks in his preferred centre rather than wing spot, rather than a misfiring wire in a bottom four team that is having a lot of changes. I wasnt too enamoured about this at first. But on reflection Toby is a Huddersfield lad- who would come and support Huddersfield in the stands as a boy, he is international standard and has a lot to prove - if anyone can get him playing well it’s Watson. I suppose on paper he’s an equally good player. Perhaps a little more robust, maybe not quite as disciplined, but he’s got a chance now to prove himself in a top three team and perhaps a chance to push to win something.

Would be interesting to know how many matches he missed through injury. To me I suspect quite a lot.Perhaps there's something in the Wardle genes.A team player certainly doesn't register.

As a young player with one eye on the world Cup, who could blame Wardle? He needs to be playing and developing, but due to the form of Leroy and Leutele he couldn't get in. Just the way things fall, id welcome him back, but if timings don't work then so be it

Well there was the blip! Not much you can do when you totally dominate the first 15 minutes in every stat apart from the one that matters! Cas really wanted that and fair play to them for playing that like a cup final. Their defence and enthusiasm was absolutely top notch. Not really much to worry about for us there, barring the freaky first couple of tries we had more than enough possession and position to win, but we do need to be able to change a play when they are rushing our playmakers. They were very accurately determining who the ball was going to and closing down really well which left our attack really disjointed. That's where a half needs to look up and change the play accordingly, we are going by a play book a little too much and sides are now developing a plan for that. I can't wait for Fages to be back as he will add the experience our halves are currently missing.

Every top team will have the odd blip throughout the year. Cas were running red hot tonight and seemed to want it more.

Interesting to see the stats feel like Will Pryce missed more tackles than he made

Pryce has got a long way to go before he is anything like the finished article. He needs to understand that he doesn't have to beat 5 men and score everytime he gets the ball, there were a couple of times last night when he had beaten a couple and if he had then got rid of the ball we could have been in a great position, but he just kept stepping and inevitably got tackled. As you say his defence is very ordinary atm, not too sure why the NRL are so interested to be honest, as inability to defend means you will never get a game over there.

He is still a teenager, his defence will improve with experience, and coaching.

The stats tell a very interesting story. Couldn’t make this one as had tickets to a gig- but listened to the first half on the way and we sounded awful bad the first 5 minutes.
Pryce missed 9 tackles. We missed 30 altogether which is poor for us. Our most telling stats were in our pack- Our forwards were shocking. Wilson 3 metres per carry, looks like he only played 16 minutes. greenwood 5, Seb 6, only Yates (just) and Lawrence made over 100 metres. In fact it just goes to show how clueless people are as on the Facebook group someone was moaning about Lawrence who on paper was by far and away our best forward last night making 126 metres, 9 metres a carry, 2nd highest tackler with 31, no misses no errors or penalties- but apparently he’s crap
When your halves are making more metres and than most of your forwards there’s something not right. If that was the actual game plan on that small pitch with our pack it was a s**t one! And clearly it didn’t work.