squad announced

Wigan Warriors 19-man-squad
John Bateman, Joe Bretherton, Gregg Burke, Tony Clubb, Liam Farrell, Ben Flower, Anthony Gelling, Oliver Gildart, Nick Gregson, Dom Manfredi, Lee Mossop, Sean O’Loughlin, Sam Powell, Dan Sarginson, Matty Smith, Ryan Sutton, Taulima Tautai, Lewis Tierney, George Williams


Wigan Warriors make three changes to their 19-man squad to face Salford on Thursday.
The Warriors picked up a series of injuries in last weekends World Club Series defeat to Brisbane Broncos.
Lee Mossop, Nick Gregson and Joe Betherton come in to replace Michael McIlorum, Willie Isa and Josh Charnley.
On McIlorums injury Shaun Wane said: “”Micky is being operated on next week, it will be a long one but we’ll know more after the operation.”.
He also went onto confirm that Willie Isa could miss up to 6 weeks after suffering a knee injury. Meanwhile Oliver Gildart looks set to deputise for Josh Charnley again, as the England winger sits out with a facial injury.

On The Red Devils, Wane continued

“They’ve played well, I’ve watched all of their games. They beat us in a pre-season game, we had our internationals missing but they still won.
“They’ve got two good halves and some big names, they’re a tough team to beat but if we’re on we’ll challenge them.”

Salford with an eight point start on the handicap looks a good bet. In the pre season game Lui was as rusty as hell (he dropped it about three times - whilst he looks a real handful now with a few games behind him) but they looked a well drilled unit. Dobson is much happier pulling the strings with Chase out of the way.

If we can somehow scrape a win out of this one it will be a very good result indeed. It needs the fans to be right behind the team on Thursday.

8 point start for Salford sounds like a steal considering our injuries and their great form. Looks like Matty Smith is fine to play then.

That's still a good squad even with the injuries you have.

Will the match be streamed live,for those of us who can't attend ?

If it is I would expect an annoucement sometime next week

That's still a very strong looking Wigan pack.

Our record at your place is abysmal, however I'll travel with a bit more optimism on Thursday than we have done before after our decent start to the season.

i would not be at all surprised if some of those players are either going to play with a niggle, or have a late fitness test. if 2 drop out come thu morning, i would not have to get my surprised face out

I believe it isn't allowed under the current tv. deal.

Tierney
Manfredi
Gelling
Sarginson
Gildhart
Williams
Powell
Sutton
O'loughlin
Mossop
Bateman
Farrell
Flower

Powell
Tautai
Burke
Clubb

Smith is in the 19 so I guess he'll play.

Tierney,
Manfredi, Gelling, Sarginson, Gildart,
Williams, Smith,
Flower, Powell, Mossop,
Farrell, Bateman,
O'Loughlin.

Tautai, Clubb, Sutton, Gregson.

To say we've got a few injuries our side still looks strong. It'll be interesting to see how we bounce back and if we look mentally a little shaky.

Any sort of win would be a very good one.

Big game for Salford this I was hoping the wigan 19 would look a lot weaker than what it actually does. But its a game we can win if we play how we did against Saints and first half hour against Widnes.

I’d go with the following:

FB 4 Sarginson
RW 22 Tierney
RC 3 Gelling
LC 20 Gildart
LW 5 Manfredi
SO 6 Williams
SH 7 Smith
P 23 Mossop
H 13 O’Loughlin
P 10 Flower
SR 14 Bateman
SR 12 Farrell
LF 21 Sutton

S 15 Clubb
S 16 Powell
S 19 Tautai
S 26 Burke

Tierney on the wing not so much because I don’t trust him at full back (he looked pretty safe under the high ball against Brisbane, and made a brilliant try-saving tackle) but because I think he’s a better wing option that Gildart, who didn’t look comfortable there at all on Sunday. Switched Manfredi to the left because he’s probably the only option we have got that stands much chance of not being completely trampled by Carney.

Lockers at hooker because I reckon he can do the job better than McIlorum and Powell isn’t in the best of form. Would have dropped Powell altogether if Waterworth wasn’t injured.

I'm not sure Lockers would do a better job than MM but I'd start him at hooker just to keep Powell out of the way for a bit. He's really not in good form at the moment and I worry about us if he keeps starting in place of MM.

I'd leave Tierney at FB just to give him an extended run in his preferred position. He must have taken a lot of confidence out of his solid performance against Brisbane. Williams was allowed to develop at stand off last season and it worked out well for us.