Sounds like Lino has a fitness test tomorrow.

I imagine if he doesn’t make it Gaskell will replace him rather than Walker.

Why didn't Gaskill replace Lino last week ?

He wasn’t in the 21 man squad.

He was injured

From that squad I agree with others about playing those in their most natural position. I’d go with….

Max Jowitt
Lewis Murphy
Corey Hall
Lee Gaskell
Jorge Taufua
Jacob Miller
Mason Lino/Brad Walker
Jai Whitbread
Liam Hood
Tinirau Arona
Matty Ashurst
Jay Pitts
James Batchelor

Subs

David Fifita
Josh Bowden
Kelepi Tanginoa
Harry Bowes

So In a team that is conceding 30 plus points every week you want to play Gaskill in the centre, a man who is possibly the worst 1 on 1 tackler seen in SL history. Batch has to play centre he can defend, yes he lacks pace but we will be up against Shaun Kenny Dowell who takes a bit of handling. Gaskill would run a mile, Batch will do a better job than Croft.
It seems to me that nothing changes, since the warm up game against Fev you could see that our defence was poor, 30 plus points a match tells its own story, have we changed anything, have we brought in someone to assist with defence ? I don't know but it seems a very obvious course of action that should have happened weeks ago. I don't fancy our lot to restrict Coote and SKD to less than 30, it is obvious from the Salford and Toulouse debacles that our players neither have the skill set or the desire to defend and sadly it seems that our coaching staff seem powerless to improve the skillset or change the mindset.

Tbh our defence didn’t look anything like at Halifax

I think that Batch is needed in the pack. I agree Gaskell playing centre is not ideal but it’s his most natural position. If not Gaskell then Croft but not Batch for me….

Look at it another way, if Batch is needed in the pack, which as far as I can see is full strength. This surely suggests he is an inflential player and one of our best, so why did we not sign him for next year.

I don’t know. Maybe he had a better offer elsewhere….

Batch has to play centre for me. He is the best option there certainly in defence. Last two times he played there he scored 3? Try’s and our defence on that edge was strong. We need that strength in defence. Batchelors work rate is also very high. We have plenty of options in the pack and Crowther should start at 13 with his strong defence. Batch has always been a second rower playing wide. He’s only played a handful of games at 13. We need him on the edges from now on imo either right SR or RC.

I’d go:

Jowitt
Taufua
Hall
Batchelor
Murphy
Lino
Miller
Fifita
Hood
Whitbread
Ashurst
Tanginoa
Crowther

Bowden
Arona
Bowes
Pitts

Looking at the squad it mostly picks itself.

I hope we use certain tactics to our advantage. Kicking behind Hall for Murphy into space for and use his pace would be good to see. Also Taufua looks a strong unit so hopefully we can bring him onto the ball near the try line.

Id go with
Jowitt
Jorge
Hall
Batch
Murphy
Gaskell
Lino
Bowdan
Hood
Arona
Pitts
Ashurst
Whitbread

Bowes
Fifita
Kelepi
Walker,

Move whitbread to prop when walker comes on

Put it this way, wakefield did not offer him a good one

And how would you know that?

History and our proud record of having the lowest budget in SL after all these years. I regret you are going to have to accept the facts we had a year to sign him before he could speak to other clubs because when we don’t the player find it easy to find a club who will pay more than us. We have relied on a player’s loyalty unfortunately after too many seasons of struggles they have quite understandably had enough.
With Batchelor he just needs to look at his brother’s progress, why would he want to stay in the Trinity backwater.
I know what you are going to say and you are correct I do not having written proof but when any of our players are linked with another club how many actually stay.