The Phantom Horseman

I'm hoping that Hardy plays, but Gorman's main position is centre even though he has played full back and wing for us lately.

Corey Hall's at Cas now so wasn't an option on DR. Unless you meant Ryan.... As MLP says, it presumably will be either Hardy or Gorman at centre, though Hardy could fill in at back row with England perhaps switching to the bench too.

I agree with all of that but sadly it's where the game is at. SL teams are having to carry big squads with the number of injuries and suspensions they seem to get these days, nobody seems to think the reserves set up is worth much, and there are fewer players to go around the Championship clubs.

Indeed, and Hooley's straight into the squad published on the RFL website and presumably will play full back. Still no Springer, Hardcastle is back in the 21 which is very welcome but we'll have to see if he plays. Gorman is still in the squad so could switch to centre if Hardy's not ready yet. Fishwick the other DR player called up. Massey's included again, interesting to see if this is the week where he finally returns. Tanner missing again.

Makes sense with Caleb still presumably in NZ for a little while yet. He can kick goals too which is an added bonus.

You've heard many different stories about who was left out of SL clubs because a lot of clubs were. They might have had slightly different cases - for my money, leaving aside my own club, perhaps the biggest injustice was served on Keighley, who topped their division and should have been promoted but for the belated change to the rules. That decision, at the height of Cougarmania, had a massive impact on the club in terms of supporters, sponsors etc and they never really recovered from it, and there are some Championship clubs who see a similar likely impact on their club from the IMG system. And I'm not sure where to start with that phrase "they were just put into SL. with the message of 'good luck' ". There are plenty of clubs that would have loved to have been "just put into SL", especially nowadays with over 10 times the funding they get in Championship.

Is it safe to say you're relatively young? Many on here recall those days very well, including how quickly everything seemed to happen, the whole farrago surrounding mergers, and how the goalposts were moved very late in the day. As with any perceived injustice, the bitterness doesn't necessarily erode with time. If you weren't around to remember those days, it's perhaps best not to disaparage those who were?

It's quite relevant to a discussion over whether expansion clubs have historically been favoured over others, a question that you yourself asked. At the end of the 1994-95 season, London Broncos, who finished 4th in what was then the second division, were promoted to Super League (via the interim 1995-96 season), whereas the clubs that had finished 11th to 15th in division one were all relegated to the second tier, and the three clubs that finished above London in the second division were also kept in that division.

Surely an unfair advantage to Hull here given they have so much recent experience playing with fewer than 13 on the field?

He's still got a game to serve. Suspensions from incidents in Championship games start not from the next weekend but the weekend after. Reynolds' ban came from the Doncaster game on 14th April but he could have played for us the following week against Widnes, except he was required by Hull KR and played for them that weekend.

I might have been mistaken about this tbh...he left Fev in early April so his suspension probably still has a few games to serve, though it sounds like he's still not fit enough to play anyway.

For me the best thing about yesterday's game was that Whitehaven's coach has said it was their best performance of the season (and fair play to them they did play well), for me it was our worst, yet we still managed to get 2 points. Otherwise, I'm not surprised that Fordy sounded so unimpressed in his post-game interview, as he said we were miles off across the board. In particular, Gebbe had an outstanding game for them and must have made at least 5 clean breaks but we played him like we had no idea that he had any ability and our defence just repeatedly opened up, our tackling was really poor, and our right edge defence looked weaker than ever, conceded 4 tries down that side and it probably should have been 6 or 7. It's difficult to be too harsh though because we are clearly struggling to put out 17 at the moment and different players are popping up in different positions each way so it's not surprising we lack cohesion in attack and defence and it sounds like a couple of the changes came late in the week which doesn't help in that regard. The Jones at half back experiment was probably worth a try after he helped create the 2 crucial tries against Widnes but the Whitehaven game probably showed that we lose more from not having him at 9 than we gain from having him at 6. Would be nice to see a response next weekend as if we play like that again even against a struggling Halifax team we'll be in trouble.

This forum has been plagued by incessant whining about refs in match threads and it's clear that John Drake who has the thankless task of overseeing it has had enough. You can't blame him as the publishers would share liability for any legal action taken- it amazes me that in this day and age people still think they can put things on forums/social media as if they were talking to a pal down the pub - and he has made it abundantly clear that he won't stand for it with his comment at the start of each game thread. If people don't like the rules of the forum perhaps they should find another one?

That's definitely a huge factor and fair play to you for commenting on it. With money being tight most teams are running not only with smaller squads but also with less quality depth, and injuries have hurt loads of teams already. The definite exceptions are Wakefield who clearly have some quality depth and probably Sheffield this season too, but the likes of Halifax, York, Bradford, Fev and several others have really been hit by injuries. Fev for instance played very poorly yesterday but were misisng Aekins, Springer, Hardcastle, Lacans, Massey, and Tanner and have been shuffling players around trying to fill gaps lately, same at quite a number of clubs.

Judged on a FB post it sounds like he's on compassionate leave.