I'd be absolutely staggered if Havard plays after being out for so long. He won't be match fit and any sort of re-occurrence means you are down a sub in a Final. It would be madness to take the risk and a Final being his first game back.

Also with all due respect to him, him playing or not won't be the difference between you losing or winning the game like say French.

We brought Walmsley back for the play offs and to be honest he looked way short of full fitness and was ineffective really.

Absolutely spot on. Wane must be absolutely livid. I'm staggered by the ban to be honest even before they increased it.

Conflicted on whether i would play him though if that was the case.

On one hand it would be a massive boost and last time he came back from injury he had a stormer of a first game back, on the other it would be a massive gamble in a final that i am not sure we need to take.

If this was the announcement though, that would mean he would definitely be playing.

Like Stu said, I'm not sure if him coming back constitutes as a game changer, but it's a nice to have.

I'd play him for two reasons;

1. The last time we played him after a layoff (CC Vs Wire) he put in his best ever performance in a Wigan shirt. Was it Wilkin who described it as the best performance by a Wigan prop in over a decade?

2. Even if he does 20 mins, that's comparable to what we'd expect from Hill, who will probably be play instead. Nothing against Hill, but he made a couple of mistakes Vs KR (I'm really not knocking him btw). You'd expect the output from Havard over 20 mins, to be greater than 20 from Hill.

If we we're replacing say Dupree, or Mago for Havard I'd be saying no. We aren't however, we're replacing a young guy who won't play big mins anyway..

Havard named in the 21 man squad.

rlhttps://wiganwarriors.com/blog/rl

Havard in the squad.

I'm a bit surprised because I thought he looked a bit ginger walking around post game on Saturday but if they think he's fit enough to play, that'll do for me. I thought Hill did ok on Saturday but he's very young and the games do look very quick for him. That's totally understandable as he's still getting used to the pace of first team rugby and even more so, play off rugby. If we can get half an hour out of Havard it could be huge for us. We saw how he came back from injury against Wire in the cup and that gives me massive confidence.

Could've been a fake limp, like when you're in a rush and park in a disabled bay outside Tesco.

We've done it previously for GFs but that was O'Loughlin tbf. Guessing he will have injections and see how long he can do.

Shame for Hill and Nsemba though, they've contributed a lot for us this year.

Or he’s a fan of walking like a rapper.

Agree about Hill and Nsemba. They’ve been fantastic and while I’m sure they’ll be disappointed if they miss out, I guess their seasons have gone better than they could’ve dreamed off. I’m confident in saying their time will come in terms of playing in finals.

Big call, if the staff believe he's fit enough to play then it's a no brainer him replacing Hill, easily our best prop

Get in! Buzzing to Havard back.

He’ll be fit, the plan will have been in place.

Zig who said there was a big announcement for Saturday private messaged me earlier in the week to say Havard was playing so fair play to him. It’s a risk but his best performance of this season was arguably against Warrington in the cup off the back of a stint on the sidelines.

I think it is a big bonus for us. Ethan has got a great engine. Obviously, you have to feel sorry for Harvie and Junior but it is a team game and it is one we have to win.

Fingers crossed Havard can do the same as he did in the Cup QF and have a blinder in his comeback. Definitely feels reassuring to have a frontrower other than an inexperienced youngster and the not so durable Patrick Mago on the bench.

Agree. We have got to trust Peet and his support team on this.