Quote: Kettykat "And that’s what’s great about RL , everyone sees something in a game differently, for me having Dwyer and Sezer unavailable certainly put a big dint in the Leeds Attack ,and that for me killed the game , as they were aways second best and chasing their tails . Suppose in a way it wasn’t a bad game but I preferred the game between Saints and Salford better in the previous round .'"
So this is something that was talked alot by Saints fans in the lead up to the final. I think we would have definitely seen a higher game standard with Grace, Dodd, Walmsley, Sezer, Newman and Fusitu'a playing, and half a dozen more on both side playing with injections/ carrying injuries. It seems endemic at the moment that so many clubs have their seasons curtailed by injury on injury. You ultimately want the best players in the competition playing in your showpiece games.
Injuries have always been part of the game, but we definitely seem to either have far shallower squads than the early 2000s (entirely possible with the stagnant salary cap leading to real term drop in cap size), or are picking up far more injuries (likely due to how many more games we play being incompatible with the advances in sports science leading to more broken bodies)