The Phantom Horseman

Nothing I can see on the RFL website about the Match Review Panel and Gadwin's red card. I'd love to think this means he's avoided a ban, but maybe this is another of the weeks where the cases are delayed until next week.

A lot will surely depend on how injury-free they stay, Eastmond has done a remarkable job so far, but he's been very much helped by having Douglas and Calcott, who have always looked their best 2 middles when I have seen them, back from injury, and Fax seem to have led almost a charmed life in terms of injuries this year esepecially in comparison to other Championship clubs. That surely can't last and the test from them will come when the inevitable injuries start to bite, you'd think much will depend on what they get from St Helens as the season goes on. At the moment though they look full value for their league position.

That said...5 Warrington players in on DR according to Widnes social media. Only meant to be 4 allowed normally, so presumably one of them's on loan. Some very threadbare Championship squads this season.

McDonald's gone back to Aus.

Reynolds Aekins Hampshire

TBH the thing that's wrong here is clubs continuing to announce "season-long loans", unless it's accompanied by "without a recall clause" we all know the phrase is meaningless and has been for many years. It would surely make more sense to announce open-ended loans as "until further notice" because that's what "season-long loan" has meant for a long time now.

An injury update from Terry Mullaney on the Blue Wall Voice page: "Carlos has a wrist injury which will keep him out of action, long term. Toby will hopefully return to action in a couple of weeks time after a knee injury". Shame about Carlos but frankly I think we need Toby more at this stage, Hatton and O'Connor look fine at centre in my opinion but we really could do with having Boothroyd back with Day out again.

Squad named (including Connor Wynne). Akauloa for Stevens the only change I think from last week's 21.

Jack Arnold on loan to Goole. Fitness was his issue this year as he was clearly blowing after just a few minutes in the Catalans game. Shame as he did well for us last year.

I think it was a risk/reward issue. That was a touchline kick with us 2 points behind with about a minute remaining. There was a discussion between Reynolds and the Fev physio after the try, then at first it looked like Addy was going to take the kick before Reynolds then walked back to take it.

Springer actually got a "not guilty" last year when he was yellow-carded at Widnes for a similar tackle that was adjudged high by the ref but not the discplinary panel, so there's hope, but if you are found guilty of forceful contact to the head it can be a long ban. The Widnes coach had a right whine about it not being a red card in his post-game interview and put up a tweet that is still there suggesting if it had been on Sky it would have been red, it's still there today. I saw a lot of people moan on FB etc about our defence again because we conceded 30 points so I'm glad it's not just me that thought we looked much better and less disjointed. I've seen quite a few Oldham fans post on social media that we were the best Championshp team we'd played this season, hollow consolation maybe but a couple of weeks ago i wouldn't have dreamed anyone would say that about us.

Much will depend on whether he gets found guilty of Grade D or E (can't see it being lower grading than that for a forceful contact to the head offence). The former might only see him get 2 games (he'll have points added for the player having to leave the field injured, but will lose in point for the act of having been sent off). However if he gets a Grade E it's a minimum 6-game ban. The bigger problem is probably that under the new points system any points he accrues will stay with him for the next 12 months and would see an even bigger ban if he is found guilty again.

Think Marklaspalmas is on his travels so am filling in with this week's match thread. A much-improved performance at Oldham - probably our best of the season with ball in hand, and we were unlucky not to get anything out of that game. But we're at the wrong end of the table with just 1 league win, and it doesn't get any easier with York next up. York are in red-hot form at the moment. I watched their game against Doncaster, and there is little doubt that whilst Doncaster were awful, some of the tries they conceded coming from comical defence, York were really good - absolutely dominant in the physical game up the middle and never letting Doncaster even get a foothold, it was a totally one-sided game. We'll be doing well if we can match them in the arm wrestle on that evidence, but there is a bit of hope that we can at least trouble teams with ball in hand now we have a couple of quality halves playing. Really hope Reynolds is ok to play, even if he can't kick goals again. Springer will be available regardless of his disciplinary outcome on Thursday but it might be the last time for a while (though my view of his red card having watched the head-on replay is that he hit the Oldham player across the chest and bashed him straight into Beckett's head or shoulder). Let's hope Connor Jones is ok as he picked up a head knock, and though he carried on, he was substituted a minute later. Despite conceding 5 tries (two of which came from high kicks) I thought we defended a bit better than for the last few weeks against Oldham - there weren't as many obvious gaps in the defenisive line as there had been in a few of our recent games. But York will test us to the full, and on recent form have to start favourites.

Matt Shaw says we are set to sign Noah Booth on loan from Hull KR, he's an outside back who has been on loan at Hunslet and has scored 4 or 5 long-range interception tries for them. Hope this isn't related to the Connor Wynne story above but I guess it could be. https://www.alloutrugbyleague.co.uk/news/hull-kr-loan-out-highly-1094180

Fev also missing plenty (Tuimavave, Day, Boothroyd, Vuniyayaywa and Akauola, all of whom were regulars in the 17 during pre-season).