It doesnt always come down to the skill on the field, otherwise Salford and Cas wouldnt have beat us last year

Hastings is a must for me.

I'd go with Halsall on the wing and four forwards on the bench, so Byrne instead of Smith.

He looked as fit as the proverbial butchers dog in those club pics last week, definitely playing

One question, how did the management allow us to be so short of threequarters? For us to only have one fit winger at pre-season training is unbelievable especially when you consider Dom's injury record (ignoring the broken thumb). The Club were also aware that there were no wingers emerging from the juniors and knew that Bevan would not be back in time for the start of the season. Extremely poor planning and definitely not how Wigan usually operate.

Just one of those things really. They couldn't have known Field, Gildart and Manfredi would all get injured at the same time. Plus we had no cap space anyway until G.Burgess left very recently. We do have wingers emerging in Hanley and Halsall, it's just that the jury is definitely out over whether they are ready.

Fully agree and I wouldn’t be massively shocked if there was a surprise result. I was just responding to the fact you said ‘I think Leigh beats that team’ without any context. It doesn’t beat it on paper and doesn’t beat it if both teams turn up with their attitudes absolutely spot on. If we turn up thinking it’ll be a walk in the park then we could get burned. If we turn up with a really good attitude then we win the game, even with a weakened side. We’ll have to be on it though without any doubt because Leigh will come out flying.

a few out of position and playing a lot of youngsters against experienced players

It’s far from ideal and the game is way more risky then it would’ve been had we been at full strength. We still should win but it’s far from being a given.

Looking forward to it anyway.

Early stages of the season throw up shocks even when sides are at full strength.

They may be slightly more battle hardened than we are, but I do think if we get our attitude right then we should win the game but I don't envisage a runaway victory.

If they go with the same side that played in Chris Hill's testimonial then one centre-wing partnership has four SL games between them. The other side is Thornley and Tierney who are experienced but hardly superstars. They're capable of causing an upset if they have a very good day and we have a very bad day but I think you're seriously overrating the quality of this Leigh side. They aren't as good as when they were last in SL. With the injuries I'll downgrade my prediction of Wigan by 30 to Wigan by 12.

we will see, they have people out of quarantine now and injuries back, I dont think Leigh are worse than HKR or Wakey to be fair and they give us hard games

At Leigh.
Their first SL match in a couple of years.
Home supporters allowed in.
No away fans.
Their Cup Final.
They always perform well against us, especially away.
Wigan missing a number of first teamers.
Most of our team not played a friendly, going in cold.

Will I be shocked if we get pumped? Absolutely not.

Behind closed doors at Headingley isn't it?