Squad numbers makes sense to me.

6 and 7 play close to the ruck as first receivers controlling and organising their own side of the pitch, I believe Powell will be a good organiser from this position. Powell as a rugby brain and will communicate well with Tomkins who will be the main man as he has access to both side of the pitch, the 6 and 7 do not.

Powell will also not let us down defensively in the line.

With this, Tomkins will only do 50% of the tackling (as he's not in the line) allowing him to keep his stamina etc.

That just doesn’t make sense to me whatsoever. What about when Tommy comes back on? Powell back to 7, S Tomkins back to FB and Escare off again? Then the same rigmarole when Tommy goes back off again?

Constantly changing our halves is a p*ss poor tactic and gives us absolutely no continuity whatsoever.

Yeah I don't think that will happen. Suspect it will be Escare into the halves with Powell to hooker. The same as what we previously did with Deacon coming off the bench and Leuluai moving to hooker

If they line up in their squad numbers. Rather than moving half the team around to fit Morgan in. Could he not come on late in each half and play a Rob Burrows type role?

Last season people's expectations of Escare where very low and everyone was pleasantly surprised by his form. Some posters even suggesting that he deserved a place ahead of Sam Tomkins (which was ludicrous). This year things are different.

Expectations are now quite high for Morgan. My gut feeling is that his form in the Catalans game was more like his normal game. I hope I'm wrong about this, but I don't think he's good enough for the first 13/17.

Agreed. And fans' judgment on Escaré's form was also coloured, not unreasonably, by the size of his pay-packet compared to ST.

I also agree that swapping full-backs to accommodate a dummy-half switch is not sustainable; it's fair enough to maybe do that in a pre-season friendly, but I can't see it happening week on week in SL. But we *will* get injuries, and Morgan will get some game-time. I hope Jake Shorrocks does too.

Totally agree. I was pleased when he was signed as cover for Tomkins etc. I wouldn't have been as happy if we'd signed him as a starting FB. The FB is arguably the key to the attack operating both flanks, often the best attacker in the team is now the FB, for me, this has to be Sam.

Do we know what Escare's injury status is? I thought he was back fit, but the squad number press release seemed to suggest not.

Edit - Never mind, he's in the squad for the Leigh game

Wane has said he is back in training but not Match fit for the start of the season.

On the Wigan Warriors Official Board it shows the images of last years players and not this years you would think that they would update it for this year.

Start of the season

1.) Sam
6.) Williams
7.) Powell
9.) Lealuai

14.) Ganson

Clubs are only just doing head shots around now so would expect it to be updated next couple of weeks.