I think Smith is lucky to keep his place. If Keighran is kicking he offers very little apart from bombs on the fifth, which are brilliant if we are in the right field place.

Rob/Stef/Lebron/etc's new "I'm a Wigan fan now" by any chance?

He should try and ease his way in with a few sensible posts but you are what you are I suppose.

Peet has confirmed Hampshire, Eckersley, Hill and Walters are the lads providing cover in the 21 man squad tomorrow, so it looks like the same team as last week, with just Byrne in for Cooper. He’s also said it’ll be full strength sides for a while now, with no rests/rotation, so a couple may go out on loan (Chan in particular was mentioned).

It's a difficult situation in that Hill should be in and around the full strength team and I think he would be almost anywhere else. Even without him there's 6 players for 4 (sometimes 5) first team prop positions. That's an embarrassment of riches.

Really looking forward to this one tonight. Both sides will be smarting and on the back of defeats last week and Catalan have Abdull, McMeeken and Bousquets back.

The pitches are finally starting to dry out so here's hoping we see a great game.

Should be a good game if both teams come out firing after poor performances last week.

we're missing Cooper from last week but Byrne / Hill to come in should mean we are still strong in the pack, likely to go Thompson, Dupree, Mago, Havard & Byrne or Hill on the bench. I'd personally go with Hill given Havard only 1 week back from hamstring injury, so carrying 2 returning players a potential risk

Field looked like he was getting back some confidence last week with some good 1/2 breaks.Just need see him stretch his legs fully so we know he's got his confidence back and not carrying the niggle which has been holding him back

Really big game this. A win tonight would put last week to bed quickly and may move us joint top again by the end of the round if Hull KR are able to do to Saints what they did to us.

Hopefully the drying conditions will see us open up a little and stretch the Catalan defence.
I’m a big Abdul fan so it will interesting to see how we handle his kicking game.

Big game for Field tonight.

I think he’s looked a little lethargic so far this season in attack however last week in the second half he seemed to come to life and look a lot more interested.

His form needs to improve as the second pivot and it seemed to dawn on him last week that this was the case (maybe after a rocket from Peet at half time).

I agree
However I know for a Fact he's been playing with an uncomfortable injury (similar to Byrne in the mid part of last season when we were down on numbers yet Byrne turned up week on week, played busted with an injury worse, but similar,
than Field's and in some quarters was getting pelters from fans, rested for a few weeks when we got troops back and was 100% better on return).

That's a real shame. Fair play to him for that. I wonder if he had an injection at HT against HKR which eased it. Probably more likely than Peet shouting at him.

Still over a month away but after the CCF (hopefully we get there) there's a nice 3 week window where we have Cas, London and then the England test match where he (and others) could rest up. And if we don't get to the final there's an extra week!

Other than the WCC, there's been no reason to play Field with any type of niggling injury. If there's been an issue he shouldn't have been picked until it got sorted IMO.

Peet referred to Field's injury when he rested him a couple of weeks ago saying he's had a tight hamstring and that was the reason he's been rested for a couple of games, but should be coming through it now.

I think that was evident in last week's 2nd half display.

He deffo also had a different issue
Like I say it wasn't a massive problem but for 3 or 4 weeks (and he was rested for 1 of the games) it was niggling him and affecting training

As for him not playing until fully fit as another poster suggested, then I guess if wvery player didn't play when they had niggles then we would struggle get a team out as they're all carrying something or other at most times