Tim quoted as saying Atkin will start against Leeds. Right call for me.

True. The club knew the risks associated with the tour, so it's not something we can moan about. Cas seem to have started slowly, so it could be a good game to return to as you say.

Is it 17-man match squads and limited interchanges? I wasn’t necessarily expecting a full blooded match-up, but I hope it’s not just a training run. I can barely be bothered watching our pre-season games.

I don't think they've confirmed it yet (as far as I know). Radford said in the HDM last week that he'll wait and speak to St George to see what number of subs they line up with and go with the same, as well as how seriously they'll approach the game. I imagine with the number of injuries in the touring squad that it'll be more towards the side of exhibition than a serious game, unfortunately.

Probably sensible, but a little disappointing. I think I'll probably skip it, if that is the case.

Maybe I just got used to watching Championship RL in 2017, but I thought the Wigan-Hull game was a decent enough contest. Especially allowing for the travel, that it was only round 2 of SL and that Hull were disrupted by in-game injuries.

Yeh, it certainly wasn't as poor as some people are making out. I think the Aussie fans would've enjoyed seeing how open SL rugby is, but also find the amount of messing around at the ruck and in the tackle frustrating. I think there were 35 handling errors in the game, part due to the conditions, part due to poor execution, perhaps for the reasons you mention.

Injuries are just one of those things, we've generally been pretty luckily the last couple of seasons, so we were perhaps due some bad luck. Apparently all but Watts & Houghton will be fit for the Cas game.