If French is out, that's 1, 6 & 9 all out of us. That's also well above what Saints have missing. Well I say missing, but Dodd has been dropped so it can't really count.

The disciplinary have really screwed us over this week.

Not sure how you work that out that it’s “well above” what we have missing.

Saints have 9 missing (that doesn’t include Dodd). Wigan 6.

Both missing big important players. It’s certainly evened it up a bit.

Because it's not about the quantity of players missing - it's the positions.

If it was reversed I'd be much happier with us missing Thompson, Harvard, Marshall and Ellis and be facing a Saints side without Welsby, Lomax and Clarke.

You’ve got spine players missing, we’ve got big elements of our pack and our best winger.

Difficult to compare and to be honest, do we need to?

I think it’s fair to say both sides are weakened and neither can really use absentees as an excuse.

Personally I am not bothered there are far bigger fishes to fry. It is better that we have all our players onboard when it comes to the crunch, it is not worth risking further injury.

Let's not go down the road of 'but we have more players missing than you' we were on the bare bones for about 3 seasons on the trot and just got on with it even when we got some tonkings along the way. I think we are the only club that doesn't use it as an excuse. That's the Saints way. They are only the best when everyone else is weakened.

4 titles on the spin purely because others weren’t full strength haha. Bitter much?

Hopefully French is just a short term thing. The game obviously matters, a Derby always does but the longer term is far more important and in the grand scheme of things the result tonight won't play too much of a part in the rest of the season. In a strange way, I'm looking forward to seeing how the whole side copes without Field/French and if they can raise their games collectively to try and cover things as best as we can. I hazard a guess that we'll do a far better job than we managed during the Adrian Lam days.

Dont think he is "bitter much" what with Wigan having all the trophies in the cabinet,I am sure he is happy at the min.

Why try and belittle our achievements then? It's an odd comment to make.

French is playing. I'm sure the 'French injured' rumour gets a run out every derby game now.