Certainly BArrow used the wind better than we did, I did hear that it got stronger in the 2nd half?

Looking at Barrow, their sub Archer looked a decent prospect and turned the game.

We have 2 games this weekend to assess the potentials - looking forwards to it already

Looking at who played yesterday, it looks pretty clear 16 names are pencilled in for week one, with only who starts at right second row, the make up of the props and who takes the last bench spot being open to debate IMO.

It looks like-

Field
French King Wardle Marshall
Cust Smith
Singleton Powell Byrne
Pearce-Paul Farrell Smithies

Subs
Cooper Havard Isa ?

It’s possibly knee jerk but I’d be extremely tempted to go with Forber as a wildcard on the bench. He could really catch teams by surprise early in the season. I expect we’ll probably see the extra prop or Shorrocks in there however. We’ll possibly know a bit more after the weekend.

Signed from Saints. I was surprised at that as I saw him a couple of times last season and he looked a much better prospect than Moss (who we have kept on)

I think though that he is a Cumbrian lad anyway so may well have just wanted to play nearer to home. He's certainly young enough to get another go back in the SL

Is Farrell fit for start of season?

Looking at his stats from last year and how highly the coaching staff seem to rate him I don’t see any way Ellis if fit doesn’t get in the match day 17.

The big red flag for me in that team is the secondrow.

I love how KPP plays, but he is far from the finished article and having to rely on Isa as back up at his age is a worry.

Nsemba been talked about but he’s a year off at least in my opinion. A spell in on loan would do him the World of good but I don’t think we have the luxury of being able to do that unless we recruit mid season.

Have to disagree about the second row. I worry about the depth but not the starters.

Not sure if there’s a better backrow in partnership in SL than Farrell and KPP. Both England internationals.

Give KPP a run of games starting and right second row and not switching to centre and he’ll start to build defensive combinations.

Genuinely don’t think 2023 KPP will be a big downgrade from 2021/2 Bateman.

Just checked, latest report suggests he will be fit.

Yes he’s good to go mate. There was a plan in place to roll him out for the GF if we made it.

He was fully fit around Christmas.

I was going to say hopefully nothing major with Liam Byrne but thinking on, I think he’s banned isn’t he? He got a ban during the World Cup iirc.

The only other player missing that is a minor concern is Harvie Hill. Maybe he’s being loaned out like Silva or has a knock.

Yes re. Byrne, pretty sure it was just one match so he should be available for HKR

I believe the plan is to loan Hill out for a month given that the Reserves don't play for that long.

That would be a wise move. He’s probably not going to play here in the first month or two of this season but if he can go and smash it elsewhere, a chance may not be far down the track.

Byrne’s ban was farcical given what others got away with. Why did he not serve his ban in one of the other pre-season friendlies?

Impressive display from Wigan. Thought King looked very dangerous with ball in hand his ability to offload is going to cause teams some problems this year.

Smith looks to have upped his physicality and Cust looked very dangerous. KPP another lad who looks to have picked up his physicality.

Some nice touches around the ruck from all our 9s.

Field and French carrying on where they left off, Cooper looked very good in his spell too. Smithies looks every bit a Wigan 13.

Few bits to work on, sliding defence was caught out a few times in the first half.

Only negative for me was Mago who came up with 2 errors in his short spell.