Really sad news mate. He was well on his way to a World Cup squad place. I can’t even recall him going off. I remember he was down at one point holding his wrist but that news took me by surprise.

It was in back play during our last try, about 15 left I think. He was hobbling off as Percival scored.

It doesn’t add weight to the Easter argument with it being the first game of the two but these Monday games need to go. The games too tough to put players through this. I’m sure other lads will have dropped today with injuries and the Monday games are free wins for the likes of Wigan and Saints with deep squads.

I’m sure everyone on here said Saints DON’T have depth?!

You always hear players and coaches say it’s the game after the Easter weekend where they feel it most too. Saints the only team out of all 12 having to play 3 in 8 days so I’m sure we’ll see a few changes for the Cas game Friday.

I see Ryan Hall is quite vocal on Twitter today about it too saying they schedule needs to go. Gareth Carvell the same last week.

100% don't agree.

You get very few benefits for being a club that invests in its academy, so why take it away and punish the clubs that do it right?

This afternoon was a pleasure, as are most Easter Monday games.

I can see that side but let’s not kid ourselves that today really does us any favours in the grand scheme of things. It’s two points and a bagful of points against a lesser side but it’s put a lot of fatigue on players doubling up and we may pay for that next week. We really need to get our heads around the fact that less is more. I want to watch games like the first 30 mins of the Good Friday game but for 80 mins and more often then once or twice a season. We won’t get there by flogging the players to breaking point.

Agreed, the toll the game takes on players these days should dictate a minimum rest period between games, should be 5 full days imo.

I'd hardly call today breaking point. French did 40, Field was brought off early. Peet got to give Mago even more mins (instead of extras after the game) and Halsall got a full game.

How about they just increase the cap and let teams build bigger squads & employ more lads as pro RL players? There's probably going to be some tough decisions at Wigan (from if we want to be a success POV) about a few lads we've nurtured, invested serious money in brought through. Who says that has to be that way tho? Why does the club have to pick between letting Partington, or Shorrocks leave & signing another another player? Why can't we have all three & a even stronger squad/reserve squad? Is it not just good planning from the club to find these guys young? Would more people go watching the reserves (more money for Wigan) if better/more experienced lads played?

Not a single player should be asked to play 2 games in 4 days IMO, (with just 2 full days rest in between)so unless you’re running a squad of at least 34 full time pros and you can somehow avoid any injuries going in to the second game you’re going to be asking that if some. Add in the fact you’ll also need find a way of keeping 34 full time pros happy throughout the year and that fans probably won’t want to watch reserve teams and it makes it impossible.

This is solely about it being unfair on the smaller clubs, in fact it just plays a small part. The main issue is that it isn’t right for any of the players, at any of the clubs. I doubt some of our players (especially lads in the middle) woke up on Saturday feeling much better then a pro boxer does after a 12 rounder and they’re then asked to go again on Monday. A pro boxer probably gets at the very least 2 or 3 months off and in some cases it’s 6-9 months.

Double post

Have to agree it’s time to bin the Easter Monday games - the quality is usually pretty terrible and the risk for players needing to play with knocks is pretty high.

keep them for me

Bin the extra Easter Monday game and just spread the round of fixtures out over the weekend, including Monday, like they do in the NRL.

i jumped a few pages, but back there talking about Saints and how/why they are successful: if getting your outside backs to take up the metres coming out of defence is such a great idea when Saints do it, why was it met with a barrage of complaints when Shaun Wane did it?