Hirst drops out, MCB comes in.

Tinirau Arona
Matty Ashurst
Mason Caton-Brown
Anthony England
David Fififta
Liam Finn
Scott Grix
Ryan Hampshire
Justin Horo
Craig Huby
Tom Johnstone
Ben Jones-Bishop
Danny Kirmond
Reece Lyne
Jacob Miller
Pauli Pauli
Tyler Randell
Bill Tupou
Kyle Wood

With Widnes missing their best player in Cahill and having only 2 very average props in their 19 in Burke and Ted Chapelhow, we really should be steamrolling them. This is our chance to gain a bit of confidence and put some points on them.

Good opportunity for Hampshire to start in the halves.

Thought he'd be back in this week but not so sure now. Who gets rested? Woody maybe?

Their squad doesn't look strong and we should be winning this one with some to spare. No guarantees in sport though and it is due to be freezing at kick off

Widnes have some excellent players and should not be underestimated, yes they are missing a few, Gil Dudson always plays well against us and he will be a big miss, bookies have Widnes + 10 - they rarely get it wrong.

We've got plenty of options in the halves and at 9 and Chester has a couple of dilemmas.
Go as strong as possible, with Miller and Finn in the halves and Wood starting 9, with Randall coming on to spell him, which would mean Hampshire missing out or do we give wood and/ or Finn a break ??

It's a tough one and Finn will need a rest at some point in the season.

In years gone by this would be a "4 pointer" but, we appear to be better than that now and perhaps this is a chance for a bit of squad rotation.
It all depends on whether we are looking up the league table and planning for an end of season campaign or, whether we want to secure SL status, with the risk of burnout to certain players later in the season.

I put on the other thread I thought there would be a couple of scores in it, but now the squads are out, and looking at Wakefield -10, I think I'll be lumping on.

Matt Whitley is a quality young English forward, that probably won't be at Widnes for too much longer.

Go on then - name them.

I'm, not underestimating Widnes, they coud easily win, we used t do it often enough - however I see no 'excellent' players in that side. I see some that perhaps once were and some that might be one day but none who are currently 'excellent'.

Please enlighten me as to who they are and then I will tell my Widnes chum because he has no idea which players you are on about.

Hanbury is the only one who comes close in my opinion.

As for us, I’d go as strong as possible. Hampshire will get his chance as the year goes on but the most important thing for me is to get more points on the board at this stage of the season. It’s harsh on Hirst as I thought he went well at Wigan last week but I can’t complain when we get to replace him with Pauli!

I think Inu, who they signed from Catalan is an excellent centre and it was a surprise that he left Les Cats and that Widnes were the "lucky" club.
He was one of Catalan's best player last season, albeit in an under performing side.

A strong powerful runner and Widnes' top try scorer this season.
Reece will need his "A" game to keep him quiet.

Yeah, Hanbury and Inu are the 2 that come to mind as far as real quality. Cahill & Dudson are good players as well and Matt Whitley's been mentioned.

Thought he had a great 2016 but went off a bit last year. back to his best again this year and a real prospect.

I think Belly probably uses `excellent` very loosely. I don`t think Widnes have any players that i would mark up as excellent. Out of the players mentioned Inu has been shown up exactly for what he is over the past few years, he has the ability to be brilliant but is too lazy to show any sort of consistency. Hanbury is a good strike player with some pace behind him but is very inconsistent and defensively nothing to shout about.

For me the closest they have to excellent is Hep Cahill, consistently plays well for them and leads their pack.

He strikes me as a penalty machine though - I have no stats to back that up, but when I've watched them, he seems to get on the wrong side of the ref more often than not.

I'm not sure I understand the 'not Excellent' comments.
With the criteria you are using, how many of ours are 'Excellent'?