2 games for Knowles

Smith referred to tribunal- Grade E

Not going to complain too much as it was stupid from Smith but was it really any worse than Hiku on Field?

A break won't do Smith any harm, if French is back in the next week or two then him and Farrimond together for a couple of matches will be something to look forward to

True but I'm not sure he needed a month or more break which is presumably what he'll get.

Has anyone seen if he actually makes contact? Unless I've missed it, no one seems to be posting anything which suggests he didn't.

I dare say the club will be checking the camera angles, if they don't appeal then we can safely say Smith connected

It was deemed Hiku didn't make contact
From Fields lack of reaction and what I watched 10+ times I would just about agree

Only seen Smiths back once, looked like he made contact to me albeit I don't think there was much force

Don't think there's much of a defence unfortunately. I'd guess 4 games but hopefully we get lucky and he gets 3 and can make the Hull KR game.

5 wins out of 6 would likely get us in the top 2 as long as one of those wins is against Hull KR. Makes this weekend's game so crucial - looks like it will ultimately come down to a battle between an experienced playmaker in Mbye and a young talent in Farrimond.

No lineup out of what we have let is deal but on balance would probably go with Keighran and Farrimond in the halves.

I've only seen it during the match as chose not to watch it back for some reason

On the multiple replays on the day I didn't see any contact and you would normally get stills flooding social media if there had been and I haven't seen any.

I'm not going to complain too much, as I say. I thought Hiku did make contact, albeit minimal, and was worthy of a ban regardless of contact as the intent was clearly there. They don't punish intent though, so if Smith hasn't made contact I'd hope they would at least be consistent*

*I know... consistency and the disciplinary don't belong in the same sentence!

I'd give him three games for pure stupidity.

The two 21's should be interesting, should be a prize for whoever can name both 17's correctly

Not a criticism of Peet, mainly because this tactic has worked reasonably well, but if he (and Hill and Byrne to a lesser extent) are consistently asked to play 15 mins then thats what they will be able to play.

Bringing Mago on when the opposition are gassed or losing by a couple of tries, he can look really good. But if we are being matched then we just get a drop in intensity and the "rested" guys have got to come back and work even harder to get us back in the game.

The whole thing needs a tweek.

If Mago was capable of doing more than 15 minutes I just don’t see how Peet wouldn’t have got more minutes out of him.
The next few weeks will tell us how good players like Mago, Byrne, Walters and Hill really are. Byrne needs to do a job on Walmsley, Mago needs to be effective for longer minutes, Walters needs show that he really has great potential and Hill needs to lift his tempo. I’m hoping Forber plays as this will keep our ptb quicker and hopefully get us on the front foot more often than not.
I’m not a fan of “magic” weekend but I’m now looking forward to see how we react to current loss of form and enforced changes.