Give it to French to play him in a complete different position? What is the actual point?!

Absolute shambles again.

Saints gave Richardson the 6 last season and he barely played, the numbers mean very little.

This is turning into an episode of the prisoner

Superb song

Me too

Actually it was the no.7 shirt, but he still rarely played, as you say.

How many players these days of squad numbers play in the position shown on the back of a shirt?

Hastings has even requested to be number 31.

Perhaps, we should just have numbers 1 to 17, but that would mean no names on replica shirts which many supporters want and which provide income for the club.

It's pre-season. Would make sense try out different combinations. French at 6 and French at 1. Even more so now Gilly is injured.

French at 1 with his pace and quick feet then Zak at centre will be our strongest option. That is a mouth watering prospect. Reminds me of the season Amos Roberts spent playing full back, He ripped up the league up to getting a season ending injury

Upon reading back I think my comments were slightly OTT however when you’ve done a full day session on the ale and copious amounts of whiskey one can imagine the suffering I had the next day



Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year

I wish! A few of the NRL clubs seem to do it.

They dont have squad numbers in Aus, they have squad numbers per match.

So we have a player with a bit of pace, and so we stick him at full back again ? We did it with Sam Tomkins too. I want to see pace in the oppositions half, not from our goal line.

We have aped the ozzies for years now , and focus on defence . And we are still not catching up.

When we used to beat the ozzies all the time, years ago, we focussed then on attacking play. We used to rip them to pieces.

As Gildart is out injured, I can the logic of playing Hardacre at Centre and French at Full Back.

Especially, when we are not short of half backs like Hastings, Leuluai, Smith, Sharrocks and wingers like Bailey, Burgess, Manfredi, Marshall.

The question is, where do we play French when Gildart returns to Centre and Hardacre reverts to full back?

I think Hankinson would miss out then with Hardaker staying at centre (if it had worked up to then, anyway)

French stays at Full back and we have a threequaters of Manfredi, Hardaker, Gildart and Burgess. Pace to burn with a bit of size mixed in. That would be the best threequaters line up in super league.

Hardaker
Manfredi
Gildart
Bibby/Hankinson
Burgess
French
Hastings

Tommy should be nowhere near a HB shirt in 2020. He isn’t good enough to play there and hasn’t been for a few seasons now.

For me all that GB tour proved is Hardaker isn’t brilliant at centre,admittedLy against arguably stronger teams than in SL

Tough to judge a great deal from that tour though in fairness. Looking at players performances on that tour you’d also say Widdop and Hastings are bang average, Thompson and Walmsley are two puddings and so on. It was a shambles of a trip and very few if any players came out with much credit.

100% correct

Hardaker or French at full back are two excellent options. Whether Hardaker at centre will work is another matter but this is Lam's call.
He will get the credit if it works and take the criticism if it doesn't.

Nothing new for Hardacre to play centre as prior to being signed by Leeds, most of his games playing for Featherstone Rovers were in that position with some at full back and on the wing.

Hardaker played a lot of centre at Leeds also. His entire first season was as a centre

One challenge I think we’ll have if we move Hardaker to centre is getting him to enjoy it as much as fullback. I always get the sense he loves playing at fullback and has never seemed quite as up for it when I’ve seen him play at centre over his career. Hopefully the whole side will come out flying and if we can get guys like French, Hastings, Manfredi and Burgess playing their best rugby then the centres should have a field day.

To be fair mate who cares if he doesn’t enjoy it as much. He’s very lucky the club didn’t sack him last year for his drink driving before he even put a shirt on for us, so if he’s paid to play anywhere he should feel lucky to be able to do so whatever the position. If he doesn’t play well in another position then that’s on him.

It will be great to get a fully fit backline firing next season! As you say, if all goes well they should have a field day...some serious speed and talent in there!