Craig Murdock backs Rovers www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Craig-Mu ... story.html

Craig Murdock backs Rovers www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Craig-Mu ... story.html

We'll lose this one and the 2 after it.

Unless there's any injuries for Rover's, their back line will no doubt be the same. In which case, I would maybe give Lancaster a shot on the left edge. I wasn't that impressed with Naughton, and didn't think he did himself any favours to warrant a starting spot this week. In the friendly Derby, two of rover's tries in the last 20 were due to naughton being out positionally, so unless he's sured that up, I feel they may target him again.

Out of our backs from last week, I'd say Shaul and Yeaman were the two guarantees, with the other three positions a pick from Michaels, Logan, Tala, Fonua, Naughton and Lancaster.

Carlos and Sneyd in the halves.

Forwards much the same. Would look at getting Thompson back in somewhere as I think he was unlucky to miss out last week and had performed pretty consistently before that.

radford needs to revert to playing ellis and pritchard from the bench. He needs to spell mini and manu properly and give houghton a breather at some stage

Get back to starting Thompson at 13 and shift Ellis to the bench for one of Green or Watts?

Fonuas as big a turnstile as Talanoa - weve had it if we have him and Logan on the same side

Just need to stop this reverting back to a safety first policy, we go into our shells, don't try anything and produce the same old boring predictable performances. Instead of panicking after a couple of close defeats and going all safety first, Radford needs to work out how to get this team closing them close ones out. Not completely changing the style of play completely. Pritchard and ellis on bench, interchanging with manu, mini, get our 2nd rowers playing wider out, instead trundling it down the middle every time, and try getting back to some off load, support play rugby. Defensively don't have us so narrow, need to start trusting the inside man, ie, second rowers not so far in, should help with the /wing defensive frailties

We certainly never sweat any blood in Derby's under Chester, I thought it was noticeable how out enthused we were in nearly all our games against you in the last 18 months, the KC game last year aside when we beat you more because you were just plain awful that day.

Radford has instilled a lot of derby pride in your team and I'm hoping Webster can get into ours.

I'll go for either a close Rovers win or a biggish Hull one.

Have a word with yourself! Fonua has only played two games for us for Christ's sake.

Got to say I agree with this assessment. For the most part under Radford I would say we've been the side more fired up for the derbies.

Can see us nicking it. But it will be tight.

Quite simply, we shouldn't drop any points against Rovers on Friday.

Easy to say, and of course derby's are renowned for seeing form (whether good or bad) go out the window, but a look at the two likely teams and this is a game we should be winning comprehensively.

The more likely scenario: A close, scrappy game, poor rugby on show, with either side nicking it by a score or less. 7 games in and I'm sick of playing Rovers already.