WN83

Just going off past squads, I can't see us going with a back up FB, winger, centre and a halfback. That would mean picking 11 backs in total, when we only picked 9 in 2024 against Samoa and 10 against Tonga in 2023. My guess is we go with 10 in total, with Brimson covering a few spots. My 10 currently would be Welsby, Young, Farnworth, Wardle, Ashton, Williams, Smith, Lewis, Brimson and Marshall or Johnstone (can't split them two at the minute).

Feels like we'll have our starting 7, a back up winger and whoever you class as back up halfback in the squad from Williams/Lewis/Smith and that would leave us needing back up for fullback and centre. Brimson being able to cover both of those, with the added bonus of covering stand off makes him a solid pick. It would likely be bad news for guys like Newman, Gildart or whoever else had claims on a spot in the squad.

Feels like there must've been some encouragement from Wane if it's gone as far as him requesting to switch allegiance. Looking at it from solely a playing POV, he's very handy back up to Welsby, at centre for Farnworth and Wardle and even stand off.

Daft part was that Edgell did go to jump but unlike Murphy, he timed his jump correctly and his jump was stopped about 6 inch off the floor by being hit in the head, with a flying knee, from a guy who had timed his jump badly and had gone past the ball. I thought it should've just been a penalty, as it was an accident but Wilkins taken on it was embarrassing.

Sky can't let Wilkin keep pushing this narrative that Saints are getting all the bad calls. I get he wants to help his mate in Wellens but he's paid to give proper and balanced opinions.

As if Wilkin just said the effort of Edgill to get off the ground was pathetic he didn't get chance to as he got kneed in the head! I don't agree with the yellow in all honesty but what is he on about.

It's full of effort and desire but a bit of a grind to watch. In saying that, a style like that doesn't hurt a team in the play offs.

Class player but he never was. He benefits from the young British player bias. His teammate tonight in Whitby somehow made the man of the match shortlist on the same basis. He's a young kid doing pretty well and sometimes it feels like they don't need the OTT reactions they get from the Sky team. It heaps pressure on.

"keep going, keep going, keep going,I just want to check if there's any grass marks on the rugby league ball on the floor, keep going, keep going, zoom in, keep going, I just want to check if there is a worm between the ball and the ground, keep going"

I think we can be really pleased with that. I'm not saying we'd be happy with it but I was there in the 2011 Tri Nations game and there was 42,000 on, all in the lower two tiers and that felt pretty good, so we look well on course to smash that and hopefully get past that 2013 Semi final crowd. If the lower two tiers are full, a crowd of 65-70k would look good and lead to a good atmosphere.

It's what I'd do, certainly in terms of the first 3 and maybe use Sailor as a utility from the bench. They need experienced leaders in there at the minute and Lomax at the very least is a solid player defensively.

If there is no reaction from Saints to that display last week, then I do fear for Wellens because it was really poor. I do think we'll see one though and they may just grab the game. Saints by 4

That second half against Saints was probably the best display of grit, fight and desire I've seen from Warrington for a good while. I think that bodes well for them giving this a good crack but Wigan should have too much. Wigan by 18

I saw on the 80 minutes podcast them saying sales are at about 25k currently. If that's correct and we want to get up to 70k and we have 25 weeks until the game, it leaves us needing to shift an average of 1800 tickets a week. You're going to get more of a rush in the weeks leading up to the fixture, so it probably doesn't need to be that at the minute but things are looking positive enough if blocks are selling out and in your previous post you mentioned nearly 500 tickets selling in a day.

Just a bit of jesting. I get the challenges with the Western Terrace and while I do think more could be done to modernise it/improve access to facilities, I can understand why it's not been any sort of priority. I do think Sky should put up a disclaimer when their team are saying it's the best ground in the UK, explaining they're referring to 75% of it only though!

It's the future!

There looks to be a nice nod to Headingley in the design, in that one end will remain totally undeveloped. Presumably that's where the football away fans will be dumped as well. It's a Yorkshire ground, for Yorkshire people

Saw some talk that a big budget had been put aside to promote the Everton test in and around Liverpool but with it selling out so quickly, that is available to then put in to the pot for the promotion of Wembley. Let's hope that is the case and we see a push like we've not seen before for that test.

They don't post the six again stats but I do know in our recent fixtures against Saints, HKR and Leeds we got 1 and gave away 9. Up until yesterday, I'd be staggered if we've had more than 10 all season and possibly less than that. That did seem to turn a bit yesterday and we got at least 2 or 3 that I can recall. A bit of charity maybe, on the back of these penalty figures coming out.

I hope we can get up to and past that 67k mark that we saw for the 2013 World Cup Semi for sure but I don't think anything above 50k is a disaster. Talking of crowds, I came across the highlights of the 2017 World Cup final before and was surprised with the amount of empty seats at Suncorp. I checked the crowd and it was 40k. We'd be pretty gutted with that and it makes you think we're probably too hard on ourselves sometimes.

Hopefully the RFL can cut a good deal with the owners and commit to taking international fixtures there over a sustained period. We've seen the new ground bounce with Everton's place and even though this isn't a new ground, I think people wanting to see the change can help swell numbers.

In fairness, if we get about 35 penalties against Wire on Sunday we will be neck and neck with the teams up the top!

Nostalgia can play tricks and while we did get some good crowds in London when I was a kid, they were not the regular 70-80,000 my mate said we used to get yesterday, when I said in excess of 50-55k would class as acceptable. I had a look at the 4 big games I can recall, which were the 1990 test, the 1992 World cup final, the 1994 test and the 1995 World Cup final and the crowds were 54k, 73k, 57k and 66k. Now people aren't going to the Wembley final in numbers like they used to and I don't think the numbers have been huge in terms of people from the heartlands travelling to London for tests in recent years, so I certainly wouldn't be getting upset at any crowd in excess of that 50k mark. I'd love to think we can get to 70+ but history seems to be against us.

Not sure if we still are after giving away 9 penalties away yesterday but we were the best disciplined side in the league going in to the game. Wigan seemingly being the only side in the league trying to slow down the ruck shouldn't impact on the penalties we get though. We've had 22 (from my count) and Catalans and Hull FC have had 59 and 58.

It was nice to get some 6 agains for a change (think we'd had 1 in our previous 3 games). They don't post stats on that but Wigan lost the penalty count 9-4.