Howarth hurt his arm v Salford don't know the extent of the injury though. Hall I have been told as gone to Dewsbury,

think he will go with Locke at 1, Owen and Lynne on the wings, Tansey and Arundel in the . He will start with MacShane at 9 Godinet at 6 with Sio on the bench.

Bizarre selection if you ask me. Our injury list in the forwards is still quite big. I'm guessing he's resting Johnstone. I'm struggling to see any flair in the backs tbh.

Could be 0-0 then, we haven't got much flair either, I think we will try and bully your forwards and look for mistakes and score trys from inside the 20.

something tells me it will be a low quality game (both) maybe 8-10 points in each.

my prediction will be 1-1 in the mini fc v wakey series

Got 4 pals coming over from Hull and we all think 1-1 in the mini series, although I hope we win both but I think it may be on Sunday the wagon start to roll for us.

Are we watching the same game here Adam?

Locke and Tansey offer more flair than any of the rest of our backline surely

Best way to view it is this IMHO.

Widnes, a team we may have to play showed a level of intensity against Saints that we have never come close to in the last 18 month. One has to assume that Hull despite being out of form have played with a similar intensity this season let alone the last 18 month.

So forlorn as they may be at the moment they will IMHO rise to the occasion and probably win simply because they know roughly how to and as yet we don’t.

This is what Smith means IMO by small improvements - there will come a tipping point hopefully but with so many new faces including Smith it may be a little early.

Truth is in playing terms we don’t need to win these games just learn from them. However the benefit in terms of winning fans back would be massive. So fingers crossed that I’m wrong and the miracle has begun.

Well, in self moderation, I posted that list before the squad was announced and simply forgot him.
I'm a big fan of Annakin but I've also noticed him being the one letting a player through the gap a couple of times recently. He needs to still pick up fitness.

I posted a team on my mobile but didn't realise it didn't post. Annakin was on the bench in that team. I see him more in back row. (Just posted it on the squad thread).

Ii wasn't counting Locke in that tbf. I wouldn't class Tansey as much of a flair player but am happy to be proven wrong.

Agree.

I haven't seen a tremendous amount of Tansey, but when I have seen him, he does seem to have the ability to back himself and do something unexpected; I've also seen him switch off and dip out of a game for periods of time, which isn't so good.

I heard John Kear talking about 'heads-up rugby league' during his commentary of a CC game this weekend - basically, players having the freedom and skills to just look up and play what's in front of them at that moment - it's a fair way off, but I'd love to see us playing like that; in that kind of entertaining, exciting style of play, mistakes are much more easily forgiven and fans at least feel like they've watched a team that has given it a good go. I guess the difficulty for a coach is teaching players when to play like that, and when to revert to a safer, percentage style of play.

I can't help thinking that with a couple more additions and some time to work with the players, Brian Smith will instil some of that in his team; retaining our SL place is the key of course, so if we win in the 8's, I don't really care how we do it.