My bad it's the away fixture againSt widnes that is a Thursday night

That's a really naff pick, one of the longest trips moved to a "school" night. Most Thurs games are local this season, there are a few exceptions, this is the worst one for travelling fans. Not that Sky give 2 fooks about away fans.

tell me about it! whoever picked this game needs shooting!

annoying that i had to use one days holiday when a sunday fixture i wouldn't

Over Easter yes, some will have a day extra, but some weeks teams will have 9/10 days between games. It's where in the season this occurs (getting knocked out in the cup early guarantees you two/three free weekends!) and which teams you face after a short turnaround.
Would you rather face say Warrington/Wigan away when they've had 9 days rest and you've had 5 or say Wakefield/Salford?
Strength in depth of a teams squad thus is equally vital.
As I said the disparity between matches is going to be crucial over the season, those teams that it favours slightly could be the difference between top 8 and not.

i will hazard a guess that we'll line up something like this;

Evalds
MCB
j.Grffin
Sau
Johnson
Chase
Fages
Morley
Lee
Tasi
Hansen
Hauraki
J.Walne

Taylor
Hood
A.Walne
Walton

Some big players missing but as they say games aren't played on paper!

On paper we are far stronger, but there's still enough there to turn us over if we don't have the right attitude. This is a good benchmark for what Radford has done with the players during the off season. In the past we have just not turned up to these games with the right frame of mind and have lost.

What do you Salford fans think of Fages btw? What kind of half back is he? I have honestly never seen him do anything of note, in fact other than when he was nearly killed by the Catalans prop I barely seem to notice him even when I know he's playing. Not really knocking him because I don't see much of Salford and he always seems to get mentioned, he must have something about him.

I like him tough little cookie his best position is certainly in the halves and good at spotting little gaps quite an elusive runner also. And remember he's only 20 years old. Probably lacks a good kicking game though hence why we brought in Dobson.

Pity we didn't keep hold of Sneyd i would much prefer him & Fages and bring in a quality hooker rather then Dobson & Chase who have yet to show any kid of form although still early doors.

Good player, who has the potential to become very good. He will be starting at 7 against you on Saturday so you’ll have a better chance to observe for yourself. He enjoys taking the line on and making a break and also has a surprisingly tough defence considering his size. As mentioned above, lacks the kicking game to be anything other than just ‘good’ at the moment. Hopefully he’ll pick up a thing or two from Dobson with that respect.

Never that confident without Gaz.
He sets the benchmark for the rest of the boys to follow.
Always a big miss without the Captain.

This

I am hoping Minichello can take this role in Ellis' absence.

And Westerman. His leadership grows each year.

We didn;t crumble against wire without ellis so no reason to think we will tomorrow. We should beat that team if we want to be in the 8 at the split

Absolutely. A "must win" game in that sense.

I think this game will see if we are a different team this year . Usually we would lose this game considering the circumstances , so in my eyes it's a massive game and could shape our season .

This is how I see it, Salford are on a hiding to nothing, but that's not how it usually pans out.