FB 6 French
RW 2 Marshall
RC 23 Bibby
LC 1 Hardaker
LW 5 J.Burgess
SO 31 Hastings
SH 7 Leuluai
P 19 Bullock
H 32 Borough
P 20 Byrne
SR 16 Smithies
SR 12 Farrell
LF 13 O'Loughlin

S 15 Greenwood
S 17 Partington
S 28 Smith
S 30 Havard

Smith's defence worried me a bit (5 missed tackles, at fault for one try and partly at fault for the other), so I'd rather not give him the full 80 if we can help it, especially given the conditions which don't really lend themselves to flashy halfback play. Give me the guy who will hand it to the forwards in attack and hit like a hammer in defence for this one.

Clubb is just like the young lads now only less fit. He's given us some great moments in his career but I think he's done now. Havard did miles more than him against Cas.

Isa wound me up giving away two penalties in possession attacking their line! Give Greenwood the opportunity, we know how good he can be on his day.

Looks like Partington got through a hell of a lot of work in defence (not surprising when we kept giving them extra sets and Clubb only did one spell). I'd let that excuse his average offering in attack to be honest.

I’m stumped how Clubb can be fit this week after only doing one spell against Cas. To complete one spell of twenty minutes means he was either injured or they think he’s only capable of one spell (or both) and both of those should result in him losing his spot this week. If Lam thinks he’s only worthy or capable of one spell then it’s a joke of a situation and it’s hurting the team.

A very good point. Losing a bench spot and an interchange for the sake of 5 carries and 10 or so tackles is no good for anyone and salary wise we could probably find someone to do that for half the cost.

I used to be a big Tony Clubb fan, but the more you sit back and analyse his peformances you wonder how he is at a club striving for success as a first choice

He was warming up and stretching with 20 minutes to go, so would presume he wasn’t injured? Maybe Lam has realised?

Thursdays team selection will be interesting. For me if he trusted Smith last week then he has to stick with him this week. Clark, Greenwood, Bullock all have to play this week in my opinion.

I’ve been a Clubb fan myself and I think he’s been a good player for us but the situation at the minute with the minutes he’s playing is baffling. If you’re going to put three junior props in alongside one senior one, then you need your one senior prop to be able to knock out 50-60 minutes. I thought Clubb proved at times last year that he can still be a good player but I can’t help but agree with those who said we should’ve parted ways, especially if this is all he’s capable of. I guess they’re maybe managing him through games because he only managed about 5 minutes in the Leeds friendly but why Lam would do that when he has Bullock and Clark playing in the reserves is anyone’s guess.

Ideally I would want my frontline prop doing 80 in the mould of a Peacock or Graham

Lam is a stubborn moron who couldn't organize a p*ss up in brewery, but yeah we give him the head coaching job Wigan

That’s the dream ticket but there’s very few doing that nowadays. I suppose anything above Clubbys 20 mins is a start!

I’d go for this. Lam needs to keep the team together for consistency, he needs to realise he’s not playing Fantasy Football, players need time to gel and then they earn each other’s trust in defence. Can’t be chopping and changing every week.

I agree with this early in the season but this is the clubs fault, year after year we go into a season massively undercooked:

Friendly 1 - Skolars (Kids)
Friendly 2 - Leeds (First team 40 mins, 85% reserves 40 mins)
Friendly 3 - Leigh (Kids, reserves, fringe)

We do this every season and every season we start the year slowly, usually only finding our feet around games 4 and 5. No wonder some of our first team players don't look match fit by the start of SL.... they're not!

I don't mind the Skolars or Leigh games as such but that Leeds match should have been 80 mins first team. I also think they should have played at least another 80 minutes as well (like Salford away... etc).

Its makes you wonder weather they do this on purpose as they have done this past few years. If you play x2 pre-season games at full strength your playing x2 extra games and come the business end of the season this could be the difference when it comes to "petrol in the tank". Its not ideal getting your match fitness in the early rounds as you go along because it doesnt look pretty and you could potentially pick up some losses and injuries, but you can afford to do this due to the league structure, at the end of the day all you need is a top 5 finish. It would be interesting to see what a pre season would be like if its first past the post

Constructive comment would be more welcome that a football supporter type rant!

Quite possible. Under Wane the last few seasons we never looked anywhere near our best until August time.