Suppose it depends whether Lyne is 100% yet. I would of thought if he had have been fully fit last sunday he'd have played then. If he is then i'd play him.

I would give Wildie first crack at replacing Tim Smith and leave Goulding to continue his development at Donny a while longer. Matty has more experience at this stage and the time has come to find out whether he is up to the task once and for all. If he plays well in the next two games theres always the option to leave him there alongside Smith and switch Sykes elsewhere. With Amor back available i'd bring him back in a rest Ali for a game, switching Trout to the second row.

If Smith is going to miss a couple of weeks, I dont think that we can afford to rest Ali.
Our best scoring opportunities at the weekend came through Smith, Collis and Ali, with the half chance that Cockayne could create something from nothing.
With Smith missing, Ali becomes more important.

Give other members of the squad more of a run such as Annakin (second row), Mellars (centre), Cowling (centre), Trout (second row) and Wildie (scrum half) against St. Helens.

I'd also play Fox against St. Helens and make sure Lynne is fit for a match that we have more chance of winning. Its a long season and we need to use our entire squad for certain games.

IMO Wildie has been very average in every game I've seen him play in, not good enough I'm afraid.

Agreed, back up hooker nothing more on performances so far.

This is the same Lyne you didn't rate at all! Now he's the bees knees, sure he's played well for three games but that doesn't make him the messiah - I'm not having a go at you specifically by the way - over hype this kid and he will crash and burn we do it all the time in the British game.

With Tim Smith out I cant see us winning at Saints more so after the way they played Warrington so I would go with giving Cowling,Walshaw,Wildie and Goulding a game.Wildie at 9 and Aiton on the bench play Wood at 7 with Goulding on the bench.Put Mellars and Walshaw in the second row and Cowling at Centre.Give some a rest and then be more ready and fresh for the 3 games after that.

Have to agree Wildie hasn't done nothing. If Goulding is like his dad and has plenty of confidence I would play him. Wildie will be no good at organising. This is why I like Cowling so much he tries different things and not scared his tackle against sts at home last year won us the game. The tackle got us the ball back. Wildie is a sheep I am affraid he just mergers with the pack.

Of course he's important but you are kind of missing my point. We have games against Leeds at home, then Cas away and Hull at home coming up over easter. Either side of those 3 is this weeks trip to saints and a trip to Wigan. We need to manage our resourses so that we maximise our chances of picking up the points in the most likely games and also our home games, its part of running with a fairly small squad both on number and quality. Even with a full strength team we would be fairly big second favourites away at Saints and Wigan so these are the games where some guys need to have a break to keep them fit and fresh for others. In an ideal world they'd play every game but it doesn't work like that . For instance Dean Collis has proved his quality when fit but he has missed a fair few games during his time with us, he needs to be managed correctly. Why not bring Cowling in for him? And Lauitiiti is the oldest player in the team. Remember we ran him into the ground last year playing him big minutes and what happened? He did a hamstring against Cas and we didn't see him for 6 weeks. With Amor back Trout could slot into the second row. It also gives the young lads hopw that they will get a chance throughout the season and as Annakin has proved, if you take that chance then you keep your place.

FWIW I think Agar will make as few changes as possible but for me its the perfect chance to see how a few others go and freshen up some of the senior guys.

without tim smith we are going to struggle to score points. i think it is pretty obvious that wood will replace tim, but i think that a half back partnership of wood and sykes will not work well (sykes looks good (generally) when playing alongside smith)

i would go for wood and wildie at half back as i think that could give us some more attacking options

Any chance of you using some of your enormous income to employ a translator so we have a clue what you're on about??

Wildie hasn't done nothing - So he has done something then????
Wildie is a sheep and just mergers (?) with the pack ??

League Express mentions 3 players potentially caught up in the ARL doping scandal - Tim Smith, Paul Aiton and Dean Collis. The 3 ex-Cronulla Sharks players face 2 year bans if they don't accept taking banned substances or 6 months if they accept. I cannot see this been right because it goes back to 2011 - surely something that happened 2 seasons ago cannot be brought up now ?

Almost as bad as people saying/typing been instead of being!

As far as I understand it the players named haven't been contacted where as the Cronulla players have, not sure it makes a difference though.

Especially when the substance that the entire cronulla team are supposed to have taken was given to them by club officials and wasn't even banned at the time.

Seems a bizarre way to pursue justice, if there is proof consumption of illegal substances has taken place then go ahead and ban for the full two years, if there isn’t then on what grounds can the ARL force someone to admit to something by offering a reduced ban for something they may not have done. They might as well chuck them in the river to see if they float.

Would a ban in Australia be enforceable in the UK, as it’s the ARL and not WADA?

Yes - and confirmed by the RFL - if banned it would apply here. Long way to go on this yet!

I heard Steve Menzies is also involved in this but I thought he has been playing in the UK and France for about 5 years now ?

That'll be them all off to Shudds then!!

Manly are expected to be the next team to be exposed in the ARL scandal.

a player is responsible for anything taken, given by the club or not. although the players may have been injected by a horse drug that wasn't banned at the time, there is a "catch-all" in the list of drugs that adds something like "and anything else that may promote muscle growth" although referring to illegal drugs rather than "normal" muscle growth drugs.

however....

if anyone is a twitter expert - look at the tweet by Mark Geyer - he said something along the lines of "the cronulla board asked wada for names of the individuals who had taken drugs so they could ban them, wada said there isn't any"

or words to that effect

as stated by TRB - there is plenty more to come out about this, and a couple more aussie clubs to be implicated.

I'd guess without a whistleblower (and I don't mean a referee) they'll have a real job proving anything.

If they try to ban anyone on another persons testimony then its very thin and likely to back fire so wouldn't be worried about this.

How are they going to prove a player took those things 2 year ago unless film footage is around of them doing so.It cant go on "I saw J.Bloggs injected with or take" as that would not stand up in any court here,Oz or NZ.

No other evidence at all but one persons word against several others? A lawyer would have a field day with that!

Double negative, so he has done something? Either that or you are speaking perverse American English?