Indeed, he dropped a few high balls, but that hasn't been an FC strength for quite some time

id stick with shaul, his pace could come in handy tomorrow night, after seeing widnes' poor defence v cas we should be looking to exploit it too

Ellis fit and Micheals starts according to Radford,

Suppose the question is if he goes with Masi or Connor on the bench.

Widnes fan here, we use Trust In Widnes as or forum....

Firstly, Kevin Brown isn't that big a loss as the media tell you and he wasn't as good as the media told you.

Personally I think we've been dealt an unlucky hand. First of all, our best player wanting to leave (for bottom of the league !) and leaving the club no choice but to sell him at a late stage. That left our halfbacks as Mellor and Gilmore, two good, young, British halfbacks. Mellor then got a knee injury in the Christmas pre season friendly. That left Gilmore and Bridge as our half backs. Gilmore then got a serious ankle injury in our first game of the season against Huddersfield. We've now got a half back partnership of Bridge and Craven. This is our 4th half back partnership since November through not really any circumstances in the clubs control.

Add to that our other injuries. On Friday we'll have 9 first players out: Ah Van, Mellor, Gilmore, O'Carroll, Dean, Gerrard, Burke, Manuokafoa and Ashall in a 31 man squad. Only three of these injuries have been sustained during training, the rest in games. We'll have 4 props missing against one of the biggest packs in the league!

As for Denis Betts, I'm not sure what else he could do with this squad. He's done wonders with the club. We've got the second smallest budget in the league and have finished in the top 8 twice in three years on poor crowds and only finished bottom once.

No excuses though, we haven't been anywhere near good enough. We will get progressively better as the season goes on. Having said that though we are only 1 point less than the same corresponding fixtures last season.

Hull to win by around 28 and Widnes to finish 11th above Huddersfield.

He was your best player but isn't that big a loss?

Brown was our best player.

Mellor was/is our most influential player.

Last year Brown was involved with 22 tries, Mellor was involved with 29 tries.

Brown isn't that big a loss.

There's not a team in super league that could lose a player with 22 assists without it hurting them.

before browns' concussion he has been awful every game apart from the brisbane match

Certainly seems to have taken Warrington to a new level.

I do see where the Widnes guy is coming from. Take Rangi Chase as an example. Arguably Castlefords most skillful players and almost untouchable on his day, but can the team cope without him........

I can only see us winning big tonight.

Yeah me too - it is a great game to try and play expansively and really cause their weak backs some problems.