Sammy Powell isn't injured he was the 18th man but didn't make the team when finch passed a very late fitness test. Wane wrongly told the press he was out with a back injury!

Sam Tomkins is a good full-back. He is equally as good at stand-off. It's not difficult. Infact, with more involvment and with his creativity, he would probably be more effective in the halves, we only have two set moves with him at full-back, and they are both the same, just on opposite sides of the pitch, unless he creates something on his own, which he regularly did at stand-off.

As dangerous as Sam is playing at fullback, if we have more options at 1 than 6 then he has to play 6. You make the least amount of changes to your team as possible and having a half fit player with no direct replacement is suicide in a big game imo.

I can't be @rsed trying to dig them out but I'd be willing to bet a decent amount that Sam's strike rate with regards to tries and assists is higher when he's played FB than HB. I don't know how you can say he is equally good at stand off with so much certainty, we haven't seen him there for over 2 years and he's a much better player now than he was then. We definitely don't only have 2 moves either.

I do agree with the point that is being made though about putting him back there in a needs must situation. Hopefully Finch will be back closer to full fitness come next Monday and I'm also sceptical about how "injured" Powell was when he was warming up for everyone to see. If Sam had played 6 on Saturday and Russell/Murphy had messed up for a try there would be so many posters on here giving it "he shouldn't have played in such a big game" etc, SW can't win. He took a risk, it didn't pay off, time to buck our ideas up and move forward to the last few games.

I don't think you need too, his strike rate is by far better at FB than HB. Anyone who's watched Wigan in the past few years could tell you that.

With regards to Sam going back to HB, in all honesty it wouldn't be a bad move in the short term. IF Finch is injured and not fully fit, I'd consider;

1. Russell
6. Sam
7. Smith

(or vice versa Smith and Sam)

At the end of the day ST can play at HB - he played there all his playing career until MM moved him. In the short term it could prove to be a good switch.

I say short term because our gameplan does sometimes rely on Sam hitting the ball at pace from the FB position into gaps/space. I haven't seen any of Russell so I couldn't comment on his ability to fill in there.

There's usually one or two of us wandering around the local Asda.