I'm not a Cooke fan and never have been. He's a good goal kicker and throws a nice pass, but i think we need someone who does more than just move the ball on. That said, I didn't want Jefferies back and I thought he was tremendous before his injury. I hope I'm wrong with Cooke, but from what I saw last night, I wasn't too impressed. But only time will tell.

On a positive note, I thought Blanch was superb, Morton looked safer than ever and Murphy is looking stronger every week. I just think we need to find him a settled position now.

the big test will be on Monday...

from a distance it seems that JK has changed the style of play of the team to compensate for the lack of creative spark.... both the Salford and Cas games were comfortable wins but both were ground out, stifling and choking the opposition into submission... Warrington (and Hudersfield for that matter) were too good for that to happen.

We wont be able to do that against Wigan.. so we will need to find another way to win the game.... should be interesting to see if that is possible without Brough's influence.... or a suitable replacement (fwiw, I felt Cookes' signing would compliment Brough sublimely... he is not a replacement and I think its a shame we were denied the opportunity to see them in harness)

Struggling to understand the criticism from the other night?

It was as comfortable a victory as I can remember against Cas at home, at no point throughout the 2nd half did I ever feel we wouldn't win the game. We adapted to the conditions and our completion was excellent as it needed to be in such greasy conditions.

We totally dominated them all throughout the 2nd half and they defended resolutely as you'd expect in a derby game.

It would be ignorant to suggest that Brough wouldn't be a loss but we still have enough gamebreakers on the park to be able to cope with the loss. Cooke is a quality player and once he gets more settled in will show his worth IMO. Millard could be a key beneficiary from that if he can strike up a similar understanding as Kirk Yeaman did when Cooke was at Hull, Millard has already shown in glimpses his finishing ability and Cooke will give him plenty of ammunition to work with.

Jeffries too before his injury was playing superb and he made another lovely break the other night.

Obst kicked his 3rd 40/20 of the season against Cas and as good a kicker as Brough is did he ever kick 3 in a season, never mind 3 in a 3rd of the season??

On his day Danny Brough is a class act but he has more off days than on thats how i see it Huddersfield have a good team Brough may just give them a CC or GF win this season Leeds and Sts are not the force they were
If Tronc goes i would hope to see us sign a quality centre or a scrum half could do with both but if the money is not there its not there is it

if by your own admission hes the best SH in SL then how the hell can we find an adequate replacement ?, its not rocket science really is it? you can hide your ip but your comments say lots about you.

What does IP have anything to do with his views? I think DB was the best SH in SL one week but the next possibly the worst!

quite a lot in some cases

At no point did I say we must find a BETTER scrum half, just an ADEQUATE one, which we don't have. Or we could look beyond Super League, maybe the NRL. Like you said, it's not rocket science.

so you agree that moaning that the current scrum half is not DB standard is pointless....thanks you have certainly proved that a rocket science degree is not needed to comprehend the situation.

40k a year for rocket science

Sorry if this has already been aswered but does anyone know what time the 'SL show' is on to see the highlights of us beating the Tiggers?

All I'm saying is that we have lost a class player and that showed on Friday night. Any side would suffer without such influence. However, I have full trust in John Kear to find an adequate replacement, but in my opinion that means we may have to wait till next season. And in the meantime we may struggle to be the attacking force we were with Brough in the side.

I think there is a greater risk that the rose-tint of nostalgia will award Brough greater influence than he actually had. On some days, he was the difference. On others, he wasn't. One of our best wins last year (Wire away) had Brough missing. Yes, on his day, he's a game turner, but, like with Solomona, we will get on just fine without him.

Not just woken up but just come in from the Cyprus sunshine to see how the boys are doing at Wigan: 32 - 0 at the last check on BBC website!
TBF - beating Cas is the most important result for me and, yes I'd prefer a boring win against them than a thrilling defeat. Problem is, we seem to be unable to play any other way at the moment - Cas, Huddersfield, Salford even. I think I'm short of being the biggest ar*se in this forum by a long, long way but summat's definitely not right with our team at the moment.