Confidence in what?

As good as Penny has been at fullback, the imbalance of Russell on the wing is too great.

not so sure pal.

That I cannot give you an argument with. However should Evans return Matty wouldn't make my team.

Soz Yed, I joined the topic halfway through.

Both Ratchford and Russell are quality full backs.

I would prefer it if we could accommodate both and have MT at FB and SR at 6 with
Gob at 7.

Well I am firmly in the don't panic Mr Mannering camp. We had a hard match last week, Les Cats had a week off... and it showed, we were sluggish. They had a very good quality side out and the only way to deal with their big forwards and elusive backs is to give them no space. We didn't have the energy levels for that and paid the price.

The big negative for me was Wheeler, his defence as already mentioned was beyond poor. He needs to really sort out his tackling.

One point not mentioned was Bridge. Is it me or did anybody else think he was well off the pace ? I don't think he is anywhere near match fit and I would be interested to hear what is happening back stage - my guess would be that he has been restricted to only light training.

Joe Philbin did very well and it should be a good boost to his confidence. Lets see him have a string of games to see if he can continue with his form.

Finally, I would like to see Ratchford back at FB next week.

Really not being pedantic W/O but I'm a big Dad's Army fan.

It's Captain Mainwaring.

All of a sudden we appear to be picking positions for players and not players for positions.

Penny at wing or FB
Russell at FB or wing
Wheeler anywhere in the back line
Atkins Centre or 2nd row
Monaghan Centre or wing

I don't know whether it's the dreaded utility tag, or a desire to shoehorn certain players into the team irrespective of form or what is for the collective best but it doesn't always sit comfortably with me.

Bridge to stand-off and Ratchford to FB have been the only experiments of this kind that have been any kind of success and in both cases the players had established form in those positions.

Penny, for example, is an interesting one - at FB he's been brave, committed, reliable, steely in defence, safe under the high ball, elusive ............. and hasn't had a sniff of being put into a gap to utilise the one thing he has in spades more than any other SL player. Wasted in other words.

If I want brave and steely I'll knock on Westwood's door. So we'll have Penny to the wing and Bridge inside him for a start please,

Don't tell em Pike

Am I the only one thinking that, while Penny has been energetic and enthusiastic, we need to play a full back at full back next week.

All he has done well, he could do from the wing, plus you get the added benefit of making teams stay wide and defend his pace.

Our style of play needs to adjust to situations, as a few have mentioned, Clark looked good when running from DH, Russell is excellent at it two, I don't know why we don't just stick with it, roll through the middle with lots of support, get on the ground quick and play the ball as fast as possible and just keep pushing through the middle. Saints did it really well with Cunningham and a gang of big fella's, just suck in defences and spread it wide, we've got a big pack, fast agile dummy half runners in Russell, Ratchford, Higham and Clark and dare I say it, 'supporting' style half backs with Myler and Wheeler. It would even suit the second rows/centres who are great athletes, fast and strong, yet lack the guile that we would like. That style suits the majority of our team, as opposed to the sweeping style of going sideline to sideline like we did so effectively in 2011.

That said, what I'd give for Brett Hodgson & Lee Briers of 2011. It was brilliant to watch, the best rugby I've ever witnessed.

Good call on the Bridge/Penny combo, although I would say that J Monaghan suits the type of distribution Bridge will feed. More often than not, the tries scored by Monas (through Bridge) are via a Bridge type offload pass near to the line. It's fairly rare that tries are scored on the Bridge wing with the space for a Penny to potentially exploit. That said, if Bridge were to have a Penny on the flank, then he may change his game to suit the finishing style of a Penny.

Penny got crocked near the end. If that's an ankle injury he'll be out for a couple of week.

As an outsider looking in:

I think that your forwards are fantastic and it is filled with quality players that would grace any SL side with players like Hill,Westwood and Clarke

Disregarding the established players I especially like the look of Laithwaite,Currie and Harrison and i think that they will all represent England for years to come

Sadly your back line looks very ordinary indeed when you take the quality of Ratchford and Mona's out of it, How many of your back line would make it into any of the other top SL sides?
Ryan Atkins is the ultimate flat track bully and is a player that should have by now progressed to greater things, On his day he is a strong runner with an eye for the try line whist you are on the front foot and dominating a game, but sadly if you are 10 points behind he is a liability and goes hiding like Leon Pryce often did throughout his career

You clearly have major problems in the halves replacing your talisman Briers since his retirement, that urgently need sorting by Tony Smith in the way that you are going to move forward, I thought that Myler looked fantastic alongside Briers whilst in the supporting role but he sadly looks totally out of his depth as a partner to Gareth O'Brien in the halves whilst trying to be a commanding pivot

Personally I always thought that Bridge was your best option at 6 and would move him back there without a doubt

As pessimistic as this post is i could still envisage you guys winning the GF this season due to your fantastic pack of forwards after all that is where those big games are won

Penny is a winger Russell is a full back no more trials needed. For o'brien not to have a kicking game At this stage is pretty woeful...it's not even a difficult skill

What the last few games has shown us ie WCS and SL so far is that half backs are having an increasing influence on the outcome of games.

1. We won't finish in the top 4 this season with our current half back pairing. I said this last season that our next investment needs to be at half back. Wheeler and O'brien, whilst ok, are not the half backs of a top team.

2. If you look at our current squad compared to where we were in 2011 then we have gone backwards. I appreciate RL tends to go in cycles but I certainly thought we would be in a better position player wise than we are now.

3. We make far too many needless errors and it's this that will cost us games this year.

Increasing since when?? A team's half-backs have pretty much always been critical to success, unless your team had a ridiculous game-breaker in another position, like Hanley or Offiah, say.

It's easy to see why our halves are getting grief - but the simple fact is that none of them can do what Briers did in his latter years particularly in terms of organising the team on the field, possibly because they lack the necessary experience, perhaps because they lack the requisite skills. Either way, I don't see many halves in SL who Wire could realistically sign that would be a massive improvement on what we have currently.

Halfbacks in this country generally are very poor, we don't seem to produce them anymore.

When Matty smith is considered one of the best you know you've got problems. Pitiful to think there is not even one half decent British half back knocking around super league...and to think of all those who used to have a pop at briers??!

Well I'm going to be forum enemy No1 again because I'm getting back on the Ratchford and Bridge at hb band wagon again.

We were undefeated in 6 or 7 games last season at a time when we couldn't buy a win.

And we battered teams too!

I'll go with you on Bridge at halfback, but having no Bridge in the centres means we'll miss having a creative ball player in the 3/4 as Atkins is more of a go forward man. With no Briers I think we need to
have a few ball players dotted around the team.

Yes Gaz.
Go Wheeler at left centre, Ratchford at 7 Bridge at 6 Joel at right centre.

All the players above are recognised at those positions, we are not messing around with positional changes here.
We usually play Joel at right winger here but he was a right centre and winger in Oz.

Build the team around them.
I cannot stress enough, we must where possible always have or best players closest to the ball.

I'm not dismissing GOB, he is still developing.

If we have those 4 players in that nucleus we will do just fine, regardless of who is fb or winger. Matty Penny Atkins (Evans inj)

For me, Bridge and Ratch will be at 6s and 7s (crap joke). But seriously that could work. I like the idea though that in Bridge we have another pivot in the 3/4, abit like when Hodgson joined the line from fb.

Gaz it does work, see what we did leading up to the magic weekend and just after, but then TS moved Bridge out wide again and brought Myler back in and things started to go sour.

Bump, out of the CC when previously in the early rounds and the league we blitz through with excellent form at 6&7.

The evidence was there in black and white it worked and yet TS tried to fix it??? doh.

Irrespective of who we chose at 6 & 7 today or who we do in the future, the Catalans half-backs gave their team a massive advantage over us by virtue of a ruthless and punishing kicking game. In my view, Catalans have the best half-back combination of any team in the competion, but most teams have at least one half-back or hooker capable of turning the wingers and FB round, and building pressure. We appear to have none.

Penny aside, we don't have a player capable of going full length, so when we are constantly being turned around like that we're in a hole and susceptible to giving posession, territory and points away because of our poor ball security and style of play.

Just watched the game, Joel Monaghan and Micky Higham have been woeful so far this season and Gary Wheeler was shocking.
I think Brad Dwyer would add more than Higham. Anthony England is a bigger loss than given credit for and Asotasi made zero impact again.
Joe Philbin played really well and could keep his spot but Laithwaite & Currie have to improve.
I'd start Ben Harrison next game as well.