Stop being narrow minded just because he was the coach of another club...

"Betts is an abysmal coach. A friend who played under him at Widnes describes him as totally clueless."

Well there you go if your friend (who you refuse to mention) has Betts down as totally clueless, he is indeed the Messiah.

It works both ways, he's obviously been doing something right to keep the job and get involved in the England set up and finish above us on a few occasions.

Betts kept his job because he is cheap and Widnes are a club with low aspirations.

I refuse to be drawn on naming people, but my friends "star is rising", as they say.

Betts was dumped from the England set-up, long before he was dumped by Widnes.

What are you on about Vastman?

He's pretty much said because Chris Dean wouldn't get into another Super League side, Betts can't be praised for bringing the best out in him. (Regardless of the standard) There are other aspects to being a coach than winning games i.e player development.

Apparently Tautai and Flower will drop out of the 19, which is good for us as there pack was quite light weight to begin with.

I wonder how that will affect our game plan.

It's easy to say we should go with a big pack and just stream roll them but I think I might be tempted to downsize the bench so that we have good fast defenders in the team too. I certainly wouldn't put PP in the second row this time.
Bateman and Farrell are small but are good strong defenders. If they can take the hits they will run round us on attack.

I'm torn, I thik we match Wigan pretty well, but half back/pivots will be the challenge again. They have some creative players at 1, 6, 7, 9 and 13. That is where they will beat us if they are to do so. We need to show our best in that area to give our big forwards and fast backs a chance of showing their worth.

Sutton maybe injured too

Sutton is injured, 6-8 weeks which is a relief as it looked like he might have wrecked a knee earlier in the week.

I bet nobody can guess who the ref is.

Shame about Tautai being out - he's always good for a penalty or a dropped ball at a crucial moment.

As for the ref - shouldn't even be an issue; just don't give him any reason to get involved.

You're right about the ref, we've had him that many times the players should know what to avoid.

I would like to have Thaler at least once this season based on the fact he's the best one there (and nothing to do with the supposed rumour his family support Wakefield).

I really don’t want to encourage you to stay on this board any longer than necessary BUT.... your maths is poop!
I can’t be bothered to check your figures but, according to you, he (Chester I assume) won 9+7 games out of 13+16 (so 16 out of 29) which is 55% not 39.5.
55% to 60% is hardly “clear as day”. But I don’t suppose you’ll admit it.

There's only 2 points to gain from this game
If we win it the talk will be how Wigin were crap
If we lose it the talk will be that we were crap
There is no winning, just the 2 points