Hey Barnabus. Looked like Blair has managed to keep off the Big Macs and the beers in the last fortnight. Are you a fan of his new trimmer physique yet?

It may be that they have been let off due to hicks inability to stop all the niggle early on when he had plenty of opportunity, and had he done that, there probably wouldn't have been an incident later on.

Maurice Blair is proving a class act in my opinion. 3 different positions played so far and he has done extremely well. A real solid professional player who will not miss tackles, not make that many mistakes and will do the little things so the likes of kelly, campese, dixon, goulding and sio can provide some flair. He's like an upgrade on Jason Netherton.

Left centre is becoming problematic however, and if we could nail down a place for him on that left centre i would be all for it. Salter defensively is outstanding, and his shot on gelling in the second half to make him drop it and kill their momentum was excellent. However, his inability to provide opportunities for his winger is limiting our attacking options on the left. Blair has shown he can run good lines, and ball handling capabilities and experience playing in a superior comp in that position. We need to start this transition soon, however depends probably on the ability of bailey/cox to get some game time in second row. You could also move dixon to fullback, charlie to second hooker and graeme horne back to second row with Blair to centre. If we do this we may see more of mantellato then his ridiculously good goal kicking skills. I do not think we have utilised his size yet on attacking kicks either.

Agree 100% about blair,shows quality and is a real team player with his versatility a bonus.Imo charlie is our best fullback and a place has to be found for dixon,probably on the wing with either mantellato or sio moving inside at the expense of salter who while solid,isnt as good at the moment as the others.
Great win on sunday,and campese showed the value of a good kicking game which kept wigan under pressure,whereas in previous seasons we would have panicked when behind and thrown it away.The forwards were outstanding,led by walker and allgood and graeme horne showed enough in the time he was on as hooker,to make the position his own,backed up by french john.Lets hope we can build on this win by repeating last years win at warry,but plenty of encouragement after sundays performance.

Still think Blair lacks the appropriate shape snd pace of a centre. Think our best squad should be 1) Charlie 2)mantellato 3)Sio 4)goulding 5)Dixon 6)campese 7)kelly allgood 9)boudebza 10)walker 11)larroyer 12)Blair 13)Burke

I would not grumble with that at all, but my only slight concern is has sio ever played in centre? would not want to ruin his finishing abilities which are the best i have seen in a long time to ask him to do a job he is not comfortable with in centre....look on the bright side at least we have options!