It was reported on Sky that Richards had a groin strain, hence no goal kicking.
Why did he play, out of position, if he wasn't fit??

I wouldn't expect Charnley to be a world beater at fb right off the bat, this ironically reminds me of similar responses when I suggested playing Sam as a fb....

Pat Richards is a safe pair of hands at full-back and I have no issue with him playing in that position when Sam is injured (unless there is a better candidate? I can't think of one).

The best teams can adjust to players being injured and that is usually what a champion team is able to do.

I don't want to be too negative about the Leeds performance because with injuries we came very close to pinching a win but tactically I think we need to be much smarter than we are currently and that was our downfall last season in the play-off defeat against Leeds.

Looking at our team we have the players to be able to adjust tactically to the way we play the game, an over reliance on one style of play will quickly make us predictable and we will be punished against the top sides.

I thought Vickery looked a weak link in the Leeds game but not convinced he was really tested enough.

This will decide whether Wane can cut it as a SL coach imo.

There is no doubting his relationships with the players are great and they all want to play for him. That gets a tick in the box.

However, there is a massive question over his intellectual ability to coach imo. Passion is a good thing but it needs to be combined with intelligence.

Do we have a "Plan B" when "pass it to Sam" isn't an option?

The next couple of months will tell us I guess.

True.

I think that in some ways the amount of injuries we have at present as perhaps taken some of the pressure off Wigan but we must learn from the mistakes of last season when we were dumped out of both competitions because we were not smart enough.

The truth is that although we did nearly pinch a win against Leeds they could of put many more points past us had they themselves not turned the ball over as much. Having said this the warning signs where evident against Castleford when I felt we were very lucky to get away with a win in the end.

The Easter period should be interesting.

I wonder though if the point being missed here is that Sam got injured late in the week so putting someone at FB was a late decision - so it would either be Pat or Josh (bringing back Murphy at such a late stage would not have made sense if it were possible).

I think the decision was the correct one - with a very good kicker like Sinfield on the opposite side then Pat is the better defender of kicks etc.

Either way it is history for now.