So having lost a bitterly disappointing game to Quins I feel it's vitally important not only for are position in the league table, but also for the confidence and moral of the players that we get a positive response against Huddersfield on Sunday. Although we've only lost to Harlequins and Bradford the feeling of are good start to the season has been eroded further with poor performances against both Salford and Sheffield.

Whether were currently going through a blip in form is debatable, but injury's to key men certainly are taking there toll, and if were to get back to winning ways we could really do with getting back to the good things we were doing only a few weeks ago.

Hopefully the return of a few key men should help are chances next week, coupled with a good rollicking from Wane and Madge over the performance. But it was always going to be tough against the Giants even with a full team and with out the worry of a loss of form.

I think we will struggle next week, we will still have a number out injured, and our record against Huddersfield is poor

I expect a good performance, but a win is unlikely IMO

The players need to get on with playing instead of reading the papers and reading about how good they were early in the season.

I don't think this is a factor at all?

We can’t look any further than the injuries we have. We’re seeing disjointed performances because we’ve got a disjointed team with players playing out of position, injuries to key squad members and a good number of youngsters who are although performing admirably aren’t in the league of say Roberts, Hansen, Coley, Tommy or Deacs.

As someone else said on another thread there is a massive difference in excuses and reasons and the above are most defiantly reasons.

I know I’ve mentioned it a few times but were missing a 7, our best centre, the leagues inform player, our best prop and one of the best defensive 2nd rows in the league. All the players are quality defenders as well. The likes of Coley and Hansen are being hugely missed in defence as are Tommy, Gleeson and Roberts in the backs.

We have been pretty poor since Roberts got injured. I'm sure Madge will inspire a response but who wouldn't struggle with their best attacker out and 6 other first team players? It is hardly a disaster even if we lose our next 2 games.

In regards to Amos, anyone who's seen Wigan this season would understand that his absence from the team would be a big loss, it can be just coincidence that since he's been out the team's performances haven't been up to scratch.

The old saying one man doesn't make a team isn't strictly true, there always nearly one individual in a team that if taken away his team suffers detrimentally because of it. Were certainly missing Amos's constant threat from the back and his ability to create something out of nothing, the sooner he's back the better.

Amos has been a massive loss for us that’s for sure.

I still believe tho if it was just Amos missing then we'd be able to solider through as we've got other talents that we can count on the likes of Sam, Pat, Lockers, Gleeson, Coley and Carmont are all quality SL players in their own right.

But sadly it's not only Roberts that's injured.

Sometimes the mere presence of someone being on the pitch can make a big difference to what happens in the game. With Roberts in the side players are always aware of the threat that he poses and so having Roberts as part of an attacking move can be the difference between scoring a try or not.

The same effect goes for Feka too. He's always a difficult man to bring down and just having him in the side can create tries where there may not have been the opportunity had they not been playing. The hat trick try by Tomkins against Sheffield was caused by Prescott using the presence of Feka to draw in defenders and creating lots of space for Sam to run in after the cut out pass.

I think when Roberts returns we will find our players may have a bit more space to work in, especially if Roberts plays fullback (as he should if all are fit) and we should pose a bit more of a threat. There's also the benefit of Amos being able to create something out of nothing, which can turn a lacklustre performance into a convincing win, just like the Castleford game.

I assume you mean our next two in SL as I for one would not be too happy if we lost to a Widnes team with more injuries than we have and go out of the cup.

True. Coley was a big miss IMO. We have missed Hansen in defence but have coped due to the other players enthusiasm to defence. Deacon would have been better in the halves than Lockers.

Correct. Challenge cup should be a massive aim this year! We are more than capable of winning a couple of knock-out games to get to the final after we beat widnes. Hopefully the draw will favour us into the semi.

I hear madge was in an absolute rage after the game and was going round the dressing room tearing things off the walls.......... can't blame him really, even with 7 first teamers we were still good enough to put 24 points on them in the first half, there is absolutely no excuse for the second half performance. We were sh@ upon, big style

Well that is one thing I like about Madge so far. He doesn't seem to take performances like that lightly.

To be fair to the players in the last two ordinary performances I think the fact the forwards did not dominate like they have been doing has not allowed any of the ball playing backs any room to move when attacking.
I would suggest that even Roberts would have struggled not having any room being created by the forwards getting a roll on as they had done previously.This could be attributed to injury or maybe too many changes in the pack so the forwards havent gelled as a unit yet.

Roberts has scored some good tries this season on the back of the good field position the big men have created by getting a roll on and putting Amos in his element by running free in broken play.Looking at the stats over the last couple of weeks i was stunned to see that amos has only scored 4 tries when playing FB and 8 as a winger.

If we are to beat Hudds this week the forwards definately need to muscle up so the backs can get creative, it seems like Sam and Co get frustrated and try some silly things when they get jammed up with no space to play their natural game ie sam not passing wide and stepping back inside.

Injury has definately played a part with the team of late, this not an excuse its a fact, look at the back line and forward pack combinations over the last 3-4 weeks and its been different each week, this leads to a decrease in cohesion and the general understanding 1 player has with the man beside him in both defense and attack. this then relates to alot of indecisive movements in defense and silly mistakes when attacking.

MM needs to stick with the one line up when possible even if we cop a loss as continually changing the side will not help at all.

Heres hoping for a big confidence building win

Rant Over

TBH we had some good field position against Quins, the problem was we kept throwing the ball to Quins players instead of our own!
Coley was a big miss though, he has been a beast this season.