that means diskin has to do full 80 at hooker and he's only had a limited pre-season due to surgery. I'd be tempted to put Addy at half as hes a bit more creative than Heath and put Ah van alongside him like we did in 2nd half against fax. Seemed to work quite well as a pairing. Frees up kearney to go to fullback and royston to play loose forward. Put ainscough on wing against his old club with a point to prove.

Addy and Ah Van in the halves, Christ almighty. It's like 2010 all over again.

true but wigan have benfit of 3 creative players in squad and are only potentially missing 2 if deacs doesnt play. After herbert and briggs we're struggling for someone who can create at scrum half imo. Really bad luck to have both unavailable at same time. Bit surprised we havent given southernwood a go in the circumstances tbh.

Hard to say what Mick will do.

Plenty of options. Might depend on the weather as to who he plays where. If it is going to be a mud bath, he might be better rotating the hookers so we have some zip at acting half, which means we need someone else to play half back. I think we'll see Kearney defend at fullback and play half-back in attack like he did last week.

Addy will start, he'll be needed for his kicking game at the least. Could be some merit in having Ah Van at half-back so Ainscough can play on the wing against his former side too with a point to prove.

Shame we're missing Herbert and Briggs though, not the start to the season we wanted or needed. It's going to make things difficult in the coming weeks too if Herbert is another of these "He'll be back next week" characters who appear a month later than everyone expected.

I'd go with:

Royston
Ainscough
Platt
Walker
Raynor
Ah Van
Kearney
Lynch
L'Estrange
Hargreaves
Elima
Whitehead
Addy
SUBS
Scruton
Diskin
Kopczak
Sibbit

Admittedly part of that thinking is that I'd shuffle anything to avoid playing Sykes.

I'd agree with that, with one change. think kearney and ah van are both capable of doing a job at standoff but dont think either is creative enough for scrum half. so addy to SH,kearney to Fb and royston to loose for me. Think we need to keep l'estrange and diskin together in hooking role.

At least sykes is not in the squad!! We will win by 40

Yes he is.

"The squad in full is: Addy, Ainscough, Ah Van, Diskin, Elima, Hargreaves, Kearney, Kopczak, L'Estrange, Lynch, Olbison, Platt, Raynor, Royston, Scruton, Sibbit, Sykes, Walker, Whitehead."

Sorry misread

Lose by 40

It's looking like we may have to play him.

I would agree with that, but by going with the above we are really going to have take any chances that come our way on Sunday.

Maybe, but I suspect Ah Van is higher up the cover for half back pecking order so if he does and it's not Kearney and L'Estrange in the halves then you'd imagine he'd figure in the centres.

Good tactic! When we get near there try line on the 5th, Drop goal!

I'd go with...

1. Royston
2. Ainscough
3. Sykes
4. Ah Van
5. Raynor
6. Kearney
7. Diskin
8. Hargreaves
9. L'Estrange
10. Lynch
11. Walker
12. Elima
13. Whitehead

14. Scruton
15. Kopzcak
16. Sibbit
17. Addy

You'd leave Platt out in favour of Sykes?

Fair call there vbfg.

One thing that we need to limit is the players playing out of position.

If Diskin could do the full 80 minutes then that gives us a bit of leeway.

I think from what I've seen from the pre-season that Royston is comfortably our strongest FB option after Kearney (who'll be in the halves I suspect).

But then he could play Ah Van at 6 too and play Raynor & Ainscough on the wings.

Bit of a headache for Mick Potter is this one.

I know mate.

Platt looks the stronger centre out of Platt and Sykes without a doubt.

Platt ahead of sykes anyday. His defence against leeds was solid

why? even if ah van does come into halves, he was playing on wing last week so we'd need to bring a winger in to cover him moving in field. I know sky named platt as wing and ah van as , but in the game platt played and ah van was on wing majority of game.

I'd certainly have Platt over Sykes, i dont know why i put Sykes down, i wouldnt even have him in the squad.

Thank fork you don't pick the team then.

That was actually a mistake by Sky. When I saw the teams announced 30 minutes before Kick Off (and well before Sky put up the teams), Platt was at Centre and Ah Van on the wing, which as you rightly said, was where they played.

They messed up the Saints team too. The lineups I'd seen on Sportinglife had Moore starting, but when Sky showed the graphic, it had Moore on the bench. Then when the game started, Moore was there and Sky said it was a late change. Not sure how they got late change considering Sportinglife said he was starting 20 minutes before Sky said he wasn't (unless they changed it twice!).

exactly. not an ideal situation but we do have options. Key decision for me is who play scrum half. everything else has to fit round that. I think if we were thinking of playing l'estrange there then we would have included o'brien in the squad. So Im tending towards addy at SH. then its a question of who to put alongside him and also how we cover the loose forward slot addy would have been in otherwise. neatest solution for mine is kearney FB where hes strongest, royston forward to loose and ah van to standoff, and don't forget ah van-addy halves combination is actually one we tried against fax in friendlies and it actullay worked quite well. Only question mark then is which combination of platt,ainscough and sykes cover the /wing slots.

Well I wouldn't play him at all, but really I was saying if he figures at all then the only place he'd figure for me would be maybe to provide cover for Ah Van moving to half back. There's Platt, Walker, Ainscough, Sykes and Raynor in the squad to choose from in the three quarters so five to choose from for the three quarters.

But TBH, the only way I'd expect Ah Van in the halves is for defense (where he'd be practically right centre) and off the first tackle so Kearney can drop to FB for kick returns.

Sykes at 6, Kearney at 7 according to Connor in the T&A.