Big effort, massively relieving win. It doesn't mask our major issues though, we don't have a chance of making the GF. That in itself is a huge question that IL and KR need to have an answer for. I don't expect a public admission of any huge issue, and as such no explanation/answer will be given in public.

I’m pretty happy after that. I thought we were good until the starting props went off. At that point we started dropping the ball and making mistakes and invited them to have a go. Defence was good but their attack was woeful, their execution was very, very poor, as much as I’d like to praise us the reality is they lost that game.

The last 2 tries pleased me, particularly the last as we opened them up by passing the ball. I’m hoping that might give us a bit of confidence and belief.

I think it’ll go better after that, if we’d have been walloped again they’d have needed a ring of steel around them.

Still that performance should not detract from where we are as a club. That’s one of the handful of good performances we’ve had under Lam - and we still had issues in attack. D was magnificent, no criticism there. Nevertheless Lam is our main issue and needs to leave ASAP. I expect tomorrow to begin with announcements such as our coaching staff for 2022, the return of Wane and maybe some player signings then the questions.

We should though enjoy that. It was far from vintage but it was efficient. Keeping Cas scoreless is no mean feat and the players should be praised for that.

Oh yes! that last one, I thought, More Of This Sort Of Thing!

Wigan are back. Still wouldn’t be at all surprised to see you in Grand Final, overall standard is so low!

My missus is gonna kill me

The Wire/Saints match looks like its from a different league.

Doesn't it just! Plenty of errors, but a decent contest.

Watched the game after work without knowing the score, well that was a pleasant surprise

Powell is old school in so many ways ... not least in his habit of following the Peter Fox / Tony Barrow / Dougie Laughton tradition of letting that chip on his shoulder do all the talking whenever he's unexpectedly lost.

Worth the trip. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we were ordinary with the ball again but the defensive effort was great. I’ve not seen Cas play that bad against us at their place in all my time but we’ll take it. It can only be a starting point for us if we want to make the play offs and then make some sort of impression but at least a foundation we can try and build from.

I thought Hardaker and Hastings went well. Halsall has to keep that wing spot, to ensure the pack is as strong as it can be, Harry Smith was much improved and the pack was game. We’ll need far far more next week and beyond but we’ll see how we go.

Told ya

We ran the forwards (back three particularly) away from the ruck and A & B defenders much more tonight - the only way IMO as it plays away from our weakness, which would be to simply cart it up direct off the AHB due to lack of quality size. We were dominated much less even on a small pitch as a result.

Everyone seemed to drop the hard man attitude which is a refreshing change, as we looked much more composed for just getting our heads down and doing respective jobs.

Shorrocks clearly isn’t a 9, however he does show real quality hands when linking in between halves. We’ll never see another Lockers, but Shorrocks offers just as much as any other forward across the league when he steps into that role. I can see home being a really good long term asset.

Next week…Powell in, A N Other in (not sure who??), Bullock & O’Neill out. Pointless O’Neill being there for 10-15 minutes on the field.

Lams been bagged for not selecting Bullock at times (and I’ve jumped on that as well) but my god, he was dreadful tonight. He just doesn’t look to have the desire or will to even concentrate when playing.

O’Neill always seems to add something when he’s on. He’s quicker at getting the ball away and it’s refreshing to see us with a 9 who will run from dummy half. I’d like to see more of him but I’m prepared to wait until next season if necessary. Powell will be back for Warrington on Sunday and Shorrocks deserves to keep his place in the squad, albeit not at 9.