I was thinking mainly of the forwards.

England (never recovered from injury)
Huby (ditto)
Hirst (I liked him but was borderline SL at best)
Anakin (local fave but never quite made it)

None of these would get a look in this year.

We have not really replaced Pauli in that we have two NRL spots left rather than in terms of his ability or lack of.

In terms of size and power we nudged down a bit but as far as I can see in terms of work rate and durability we've gone up quite a lot. As I say its a bit early but we look a younger, fitter more resilient outfit than last year. We got no breaks against Cas in terms of two serious injuries and one very dubious sin bin but we bounced back a week later which we weren't doing last year.

Absolutely agree.
It's difficult to know how good / bad Salford are this season although, it's probably fair to say they aren't the same team that made the GF and even though they blow hot and cold, Hull FC will be a far better benchmark. IF we can get a result on Friday and with players still to come back, things would definitely be looking up.
We shouldn't get too excited after one victory and it's all about backing last weekends result up, with another decent performance.

Looking forward to the game though.
Hull have great support and it promises to be a decent atmosphere under the lights on Friday.

Yeah agree with all that but I think though that Tanginoa is the direct upgrade to Pauli - probably the area we've made most improvement tbh!

I actually thought Naverette was poor in the first three games so hopefully we’ll now see some of the potential he showed at Catalans. I prefer Tanginoa in the back row, but he’s also been our best prop forward recently as well. Tough call who to drop for Arona this week.

He was our best forward on Sunday.

That’s good to hear. How did Crowther go? My guess is that he’ll be the one who makes way for Arona.

Crowther went ok, got through his tackling. Took a knock and went off for a head test IIRC.

Never went ok. Crowther is your ultimate steady developer. He’s not an automatic choice just yer imho but I reckon he will be one day.

Comparing players isn’t generally fair but in this case it is. A few years ago Crowther was totally eclipsed by Batchelor who looked a world beater. Now Crowther looks the better prospect. There is time for Batchelor to kick on but he needs to because there is a lot of competition in that back row and my money is now on Crowther.

For now though a fit Arona trumps both of them.

Harsh on Randall I’d say, took the brunt of the attack in the first half of games so woody could exploit the tiring defences .Thought as a team we were at our most productive with this combo, now we have woody up first and so far not as affective with big men running at him in the first half’s.No getting away from his defence so far, would like to see Them swap around and him out in first half were his defence would be an advantage and see if it helps woody’s game.

Think Randell got quite a bit of unfair flack by some. Granted, I dont think we quite got the best out of him. I think having such a good debut, and early games, couldn't maintain it. Also had rotten luck with injuries during his time with us. These weren't little niggles, these were serious ones.

My only criticism of Randell was the needless penalties he gave away that put us on the back foot. Just two that spring to mind where the opposition scored off the next set were a spear tackle at Cas just after Fifita had opened the scoring giving them the yards and then similar at London in that opening game when we were something to nil up. Having him and Kirmond on the pitch at the same time was frustrating as hell.

Oh yeah I dont think Randell was bad for us and appreciate what he did in terms of the hard work, but I just think so far JW is better at it, hits harder and more of a threat near the line.