Smith and Green are and always have been fall guys, Wigan will want to get their young guys in there at some point soon i.e. Powell, Hampshire, Williams.

From an England point of view it is actually quite exciting having some quality young halves playing for the same club.

Saints on the other hand are just after anyone who can play in the position, we have neither an experenced veteran or quality young half back at the club. It does highlight the difference between the two clubs at present.

No, Sam went to 6 and Richards to 1.
Thornley went to 5 and Hughes to 4.

Saints decided to move their 1st choice scrum half to full back and send their first choice stand off to Salford.
Missing Gaskell is a bit like Wigan say they are missing Hock.

YAWN YAWN YAWN

Who cares about Wigan on here anyway?

This is turning into a Wigan halfback thread.

It was the O/P who mentioned the Wigan halfbacks.

YAWN YAWN YAWN

Saints moved a full back playing scrum half to full back.

Saints sent their useless unneeded player off to Salford.

HTH

Thanks, so your first choice 1, 9 and 13 were all playing as I said.

Who mentioned Gaskell? Gary Wheeler is our first choice 6 when fit and will be again when he's fit.

What a thread.

As already stated, we are also missing Lomax from full back and Roby from the pack. Our two most dangerous players that are playing in pivot positions.

On the flip side, at least wigan have a first choice half back pairing. I'm not even sure we know what ours is - Wilkin and Wheeler?

Wigan will fare better than us, because they play with a very strong structure that they've established over the past two years, so the new lads will be able to just slip into the moves. As well as having first choice half backs, they probably even have second choce half backs to back them up. They also have a pack that plays as a unit instead of carrying 2 or 3 ambivilent old men.

Which is, in a round about way, the underlying point I was hinting at.

Managed to struggle through

And just to show it can be done, we also managed without the vital full back, hooker, loose forward and top points scoring winger tonight.

I'll admit it was only Widnes and it was a struggle.

Yes you had a few key positions missing but you still had a fair few experienced, good players. Lose a few more of your pack players along with all the key players you had missing tonight and then it's a fair comparison.

Come on 1, 6, 7, 9, and 13
plus
Top points scorer, then Farrell, Flower (our most consistent prop this year) Dudson and Prescott.

Fourteen players who came through the academy in tonights team. Only two overseas players.
You can't get near that no matter how you whinge.

The homegrown players is commendable, I wouldn't question that. To say your injury situation is comporable to what we've had to deal with at times this season is laughable though.

Rather than wasting time blooding the likes of Powell, I think Wigan would have done better playing Kris Radlinski and Harrison Hansen in the halves.

Amazing what happens if you keep the same structure week in week out.

Half decent team would have torn Wigan to strips tonight.

But they didn't, did they? They won. With an injury hit team. Away. Our injury hit team with round pegs in square holes got beat by them. At home.

Pretty sure Widnes hammered Warrington last time they played at Widnes.

Given that Wigan put about 100 points on Widnes last time they played, its fair to say that missing players were noticed.

What Wigan have in place tha we don't is a) replacement halfbacks, rather than a past it full back and a second row and b) a clear game plan and attacking structure for these guys to slip into (one would have thought it would be all the same moves coached to the under19s).
Add to that the confidence of a team playing well and you have a much better result than the one we're getting.

All the above is blindingly obvious, so we don't need a thread essentially inviting the pie eaters on here to gloat about how green their grass is.

To be honest it's not a fair comparison. We played a pair on young half backs in 2 games, one we won comfortably, one we just about won. If Wigan had all those players out for the next 7 or 8 games I've no doubt we'll be struggling. It's far easier for any young player to come into a winning, confident side playing the same structures as they are used to.

At the same time you have had a new coach, presumably introducing new structures.

One of the points I think the OP was trying to make is an interesting one. Is it better to move experienced players into a half back role or blood youngsters in their natural position when covering long term injuries? For a game or 2 it's probably fine to chuck a pair of kids in but if covering long term absence to expect 2 kids to cover for a large number of games is too much.

For all the doom merchants on here remember what Leeds have done over the past 2 seasons. At times they didn't look like making the play offs. If you have your players back rested and fit at the business end you may well surprise a few.

Being out of Billinge for such a long time has certainly mellowed you.

Gareth Hock likes this.

15 years now, I spend most of my time arguing with Union fans to get my kicks

Well you did, and I don’t think they did so bad, or is there some else you can bring now?