Spot on. The idea that somehow Smith is under strict orders from Wane is daft and doesn't make any sense. Look at Gelling; I'm sure what we does doesn't always please SW, but he still gets a game every week! And rightly so, he was great again last night, with the good vastly outweighing the bad.

I was a 6' 2", 14 stone, quick Centre, i would imagine having Gelling coming at you would be a bloody nightmare...

Heh! He is a big lad when you see him close up, isn't he?

Yep, and i don't regard myself as "Small"...

Id probably look at a place on the bench for Tomkins at Dewsbury just to ease him back in for 20 mins towards the back end as long as he's 100% ready.



I agree about Wire as well. There's potentially 6 players to come back but to throw all of them in would seem too risky. I'd probably look to hold Williams back and only play one of Farrell or Joel Tomkins (whoever is closest to 100%). I'm guessing Tautai is going to be missing also.



That would leave us looking something like-



Sarginson

Manfredi Gelling Gildart Charnley

Lockers Smith

Flower Powell Mossop

Tomkins Isa Bateman



Clubb Crosby Sutton Gregson



That's certainly as strong as we've been since Good Friday.

We would be better of with Albert Steptoe. One for the teenagers to google.

That would be an interesting replacement.



From a guy to misses a lot of tackles to a guy who doesn't tackle at all.



Hmmm ...

Why do we always have 4 forwards on the bench?

Do backs never get injured? Why can't we have other options?

SOL doesn't seem capable of playing 80 minutes and Gregson for all his honest endeavours is never a 6 in the memory of man.

Id be tempted to put Higginson on the bench.

Personally I wouldn't have Isa in any starting 17. Has he made a break yet?

We don't "Always" but I agree 90% + of times we do and for me it's a straight forward answer.

We usually have 5/6 forwards that can do a job in the backs but not many backs that could go the other way.



At a push Farrell/Joel/Bateman/Lockers/Powell/Isa can all play in the backs



Whereas I would probably argue Gelling (And even then I bet he's not played 2 games there over the last 4 years) is the only one who could do a similar job the other way.



With regards to your other points

Lockers - He can do 80 mins and has done when he's played in the halves and 13 - Not when he's injured though

Gregson - I agree he's not a long term option but with Lockers/Williams/Tomkins out and Powell covering for Mickey Mac I'm not sure what other option he has (Please don't bring Hampshire into the argument - For whatever reason they've not recalled him and whether I agree with that is another issue but without the full facts I can only go with what we have).



I thought Higginson showed up well against Warrington - However realistically the only player who he could have replaced in the 17 last night would have been jack Wells who I thought put a decent shift in.

Either way not sure how having Higginson on the bench would have changed/improved the nature of our performance?



As for Isa - Thought he had a decent game last night (Apart from a poor dropped ball early 1st half) after a couple of average ones on returning from injury.

However (And I was going to bring this up a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the injury crisis)

I remember Monie saying in times like these he would pick his best 17 players and fit them in.

I tend to agree, I'm not sure which player didn't play last night would have improved that performance/result?



We were missing who weren't available due to injury etc :-

Sam T

Dom Manfredi

George Williams

Mickey

Dom Crosby

Joel T

Liam Farrell

Sean O'L



Who didn't play apart from those that should have been picked and with all that experience missing who would have provided that experience?

Needs must really at the minute. What I will say is that once we're at full strength I wouldn't mind seeing us run with Sarginson on the bench. He can cover every back position and I'd also like to see how he could go spelling at 9 with Sam Powell. If we want to change things up and go a bit more direct he'd really challenge defenders running out of dummy half.

A lot of the criticism of Smith has been unjustified. He has helped to hold together a vastly weakened team. I agree that he is not the flashy playmaker but he does his job week in week out. Powell has been something of a revelation this season but does not have the flair to his game and Gregson, although he has does splendidly for someone of his age, is never going to be a player in the Sam mold. We do look a bit pedestrian in our play but that is to be understood. Someone should have a word with Gregson and remind him that his try the other day and his near try came about when, instead of just shipping the ball across the field he stepped back at pace and took the line on.

Somehow I very much doubt there's teenagers amongst the regular posters here. On the contrary, recent posts suggest the average age is even higher than I'd imagined...