Saints may not be favourites but it would not rank as an upset if they won. They have masses of experience, a big pack and fast, skilful outside backs. They have done a great job of talking themselves down, I'll give them that, but their record this year speaks for itself. If we get sucked into a scrap like in the home game then we could struggle. If we stand toe to toe, then we should have enough in 1 to 7 (and 13) to see us home. Whoever wins will have had to play very well, which is as it should be.

If Taylor has any sense he'll stay at Wigan and let his good lady go back to Hull.

My guess would be an experienced half-back from another SL club.

Who would you have?

I wouldn't be unhappy with Scot Dureau, Kevin Brown or Tim Smith (if he could learn to defend). Can't think of many others and those three are not really Paul Deacon quality.

That would be a good question for Shaun Wane, I just think that if there is an opportunity to bring in somebody like a Paul Deacon who is looking for one last swan song and who could help guide the young players around we should take it.

Dureau is going back to Catalan, as is Carney and Tonga. They will be a very good team indeed next year.
I worry about playing Clubb and Sarginson in the GF. One thing that you have with the likes of Taylor and Goulding is thousands of hours of RL exeprience, which allows them instinctively to do the right things at the right time. Clubb and Sarg have learnt their skills and learnt them well, but I don't know if they could be relied upon to sustain their concentration under severe pressure over the 80. We already saw evidence of them creaking last Friday.
As a counter to this argument we also saw an error strew display from Bowen who has been playing for decades, but, having watched Sarg and Clubb for their entire careers, I fear we could rue a brain storm or rank indiscipline from them on Saturday.