21 Jul: SL: London Broncos v St Helens KO 3pm

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

Great win for London against a strong and very capable Saints side, with Leeds and HKR losing this again makes the relegation melting pot far more exciting than what's happening at the top of the table and that isn't a bad thing IMO.

[Man of Kent]

5 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

How many players do London have out, they had loads of injuries of their first XVII for a fair few matches, clubs will always have first XVII players on the sideline.

Your comment is disrespectful to say the least.

Not really. Out of the starting Saints XIII, I reckon only Grace is a regular starter

[Man of Kent]

Luke Yates also excellent. Ditto Salford 

[Man of Kent]

32-12 London FT

[The Hallucinating Goose]

Well done London! 

[Dunbar]

Difficult one this.  I want London to stay up so happy to see the win.

But rotating a squad is surely  ot just a case of resting a whole bunch of players for a single game away from home.

If London stay up on the basis of the points from this win then the relegated side will be entitled to feel hard done to in my opinion. 

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

3 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Not really. Out of the starting Saints XIII, I reckon only Grace is a regular 

What absolute rubbish, even just looking at the squad numbers tells you this isn't accurate, Bentley is pretty much the default interchange for Roby and has played in 13 games for Saints with 7 at leigh and is being bigged up as the next best thing. Taking into account an average injury roster for any given club Saints have effectively rested about 4-5 from their first XVII.

Your comment is well off and clearly you don't understand the nature of the sport.

[Agbrigg]

Well done London. Easy money again.

As for saints, bit too arrogant thi king they can rest so many.

[Saintslass]

1 minute ago, Dunbar said:

Difficult one this.  I want London to stay up so happy to see the win.

But rotating a squad is surely  ot just a case of resting a whole bunch of players for a single game away from home.

If London stay up on the basis of the points from this win then the relegated side will be entitled to feel hard done to in my opinion. 

Then their club shouldn't have agreed to this silly loop fixture arrangement!  Saints have had to travel down to London twice.  London will be playing the Dragons away I think twice, yes?  That's the unfairness here, not Saints protecting their key players for a Challenge Cup semi final, something that most if not all teams would do in the same situation.  Saints have worked hard to get clear at the top.  They would be resting key players no matter who they were competing against this weekend as they can afford to due to their hard work in the season so far.

Meanwhile, well done London on your second win against Saints!  Hopefully this win will have the same effect that the last win did!

[DavidM]

Wow , keeps things bubbling along at the bottom . London have done really well this season and made that a real dogfight down there 

[JDINTHEHIZZOUSE]

Get in London,Maggie thatcher.do you hear me????

[Dunbar]

1 minute ago, Saintslass said:

Then their club shouldn't have agreed to this silly loop fixture arrangement!  Saints have had to travel down to London twice.  London will be playing the Dragons away I think twice, yes?  That's the unfairness here, not Saints protecting their key players for a Challenge Cup semi final, something that most if not all teams would do in the same situation.  Saints have worked hard to get clear at the top.  They would be resting key players no matter who they were competing against this weekend as they can afford to due to their hard work in the season so far.

Meanwhile, well done London on your second win against Saints!  Hopefully this win will have the same effect that the last win did!

I'm just expressing my opinion and trying to feel a little empathy for others should the scenario I imagined come to fruition. 

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

1 minute ago, Dunbar said:

Difficult one this.  I want London to stay up so happy to see the win.

But rotating a squad is surely  ot just a case of resting a whole bunch of players for a single game away from home.

If London stay up on the basis of the points from this win then the relegated side will be entitled to feel hard done to in my opinion. 

Why? What if the relegated side played against an injury torn team or two, one that was forced to play non first XVII players due to fatigue and/or injuries gained that could easily be due to a difficult encounter the previous week against the team that the so called weakened team is playing against next time up? How can you know how any one game turns out, based on probabilities, that's not how sport works does it and never has!

it's not unfair in the slightest, it's just how things work out, you could argue all day long about x, y and z, the London no try against hudds that if a TV game would have been given, there are too many variables in every game that impact outcomes, using your example not only doesn't make any logical sense it probably has far less influence on results than other factors.

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

4 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

Well done London. Easy money again.

As for saints, bit too arrogant thi king they can rest so many.

How many actually rested taking into account actual injuries/player fatigue, just curious? it's not arrogant, yet again you're another who doesn't get how sport works!

Does Holbrook knowing he has a healthy lead in SL continue to play his players week in week out til they drop and force players to play through injury, OR does he be pro-active not just with respect to forward planning in terms of games that have a greater bearing but also player welfare?

How can you know that playing fresh junior/squad players is any worse than playing first XVII players who are fatigued and/or carrying knocks? As proven many times, resting players can work to your advantage, it can obviously mean you lose a game but in the long run it is beneficial if you can ensure better working conditions for players, gives you best/senior players more rest to perform better overall (just like for you and I when we take a holiday from work), it also gives younger squad members vital game time for them to gain more experience at the top table, even if that is a defeat.

I applaud Holbrook for his decisions and would do precisely the same in his shoes.

[Rupert Prince]

10 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

What absolute rubbish, even just looking at the squad numbers tells you this isn't accurate, Bentley is pretty much the default interchange for Roby and has played in 13 games for Saints with 7 at leigh and is being bigged up as the next best thing. Taking into account an average injury roster for any given club Saints have effectively rested about 4-5 from their first XVII.

Your comment is well off and clearly you don't understand the nature of the sport.

Saints had 11 players with numbers over 17 on their back... And on top of that the 23 was not in the starting 17 either. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

Wembleyitis happened every year. We still have teams to play the CC finalists either the week or after the final. Wigan play FC on Thursday after their probably Herculean semi the previous week end. All teams can do is play with the hands they are dealt. Saints played their reserves and got beaten, we fielded ours on Good Friday with a similar result. Such is life. 

[Jim Prendle]

4 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

How many actually rested taking into account actual injuries/player fatigue, just curious? it's not arrogant, yet again you're another who doesn't get how sport works!

Does Holbrook knowing he has a healthy lead in SL continue to play his players week in week out til they drop and force players to play through injury, OR does he be pro-active not just with respect to forward planning in terms of games that have a greater bearing but also player welfare?

How can you know that playing fresh junior/squad players is any worse than playing first XVII players who are fatigued and/or carrying knocks? As proven many times, resting players can work to your advantage, it can obviously mean you lose a game but in the long run it is beneficial if you can ensure better working conditions for players, gives you best/senior players more rest to perform better overall (just like for you and I when we take a holiday from work), it also gives younger squad members vital game time for them to gain more experience at the top table, even if that is a defeat.

I applaud Holbrook for his decisions and would do precisely the same in his shoes.

Remind me who Saints are playing in the semi?

[Dunbar]

8 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

Why? What if the relegated side played against an injury torn team or two, one that was forced to play non first XVII players due to fatigue and/or injuries gained that could easily be due to a difficult encounter the previous week against the team that the so called weakened team is playing against next time up? How can you know how any one game turns out, based on probabilities, that's not how sport works does it and never has!

it's not unfair in the slightest, it's just how things work out, you could argue all day long about x, y and z, the London no try against hudds that if a TV game would have been given, there are too many variables in every game that impact outcomes, using your example not only doesn't make any logical sense it probably has far less influence on results than other factors.

What you have thrown up is a whole bunch of hypothetical situations as a counter argument to something that has actually happened.

I don't think that pointing out that the team at the top of the table resting many of their players and losing to the team at the bottom of the table being more than a little impactful on the relegation fight is unreasonable.

The season is full of many incidents and decisions that may effect the overall fortunes of teams. The point is that many of these are random or in the heat of the moment. The Saints team selection today is none of these and it potentially has a huge impact on the outcome of the season.

I am sure you can see that.

[Man of Kent]

22 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

What absolute rubbish, even just looking at the squad numbers tells you this isn't accurate, Bentley is pretty much the default interchange for Roby and has played in 13 games for Saints with 7 at leigh and is being bigged up as the next best thing. Taking into account an average injury roster for any given club Saints have effectively rested about 4-5 from their first XVII.

Your comment is well off and clearly you don't understand the nature of the sport.

First choice starter, I meant.

Some of the Saints players looked like they’d just grown their first pube. 

[DoubleD]

I’m not sure what Saints were trying to gain by resting so many players - they surely must have realised London at home are a difficult proposition. It was a bit insulting to London, not that they care, it will have made Danny Ward’s team talk easy. 

If Saints were playing a top team next week I could understand but they’re playing a mid table Championship team. 

It’s totally Holbrook’s who he picks but I’m just not sure what he was trying to achieve, other than a London win

[MADREDNIGE]

36 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Difficult one this.  I want London to stay up so happy to see the win.

But rotating a squad is surely  ot just a case of resting a whole bunch of players for a single game away from home.

If London stay up on the basis of the points from this win then the relegated side will be entitled to feel hard done to in my opinion. 

 

[Davo5]

Well done London Broncos,great win and what an exciting relegation battle we are getting.

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

19 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

What you have thrown up is a whole bunch of hypothetical situations as a counter argument to something that has actually happened.

I don't think that pointing out that the team at the top of the table resting many of their players and losing to the team at the bottom of the table being more than a little impactful on the relegation fight is unreasonable.

The season is full of many incidents and decisions that may effect the overall fortunes of teams. The point is that many of these are random or in the heat of the moment. The Saints team selection today is none of these and it potentially has a huge impact on the outcome of the season.

I am sure you can see that.

In exactly the same way your hypothetical scenario as to outcome/relegated team getting a raw deal if saints had played with the strongest team YOU think they should have had out right? You started with the hypothetical scenario as to outcome and using that as a reason for the relegated team to feel upset, you can't start that way and then not expect to have it explained why that's wrong using your own set of rules for forming an outcome/way things are!

Of course I'm tempted and there's no apology for that. There will be some players stood down this week," said McDermott.

"It's not like it's round five of the season. There are a lot of players who have played a lot of game time and physically they need that rest.

"It's the right thing to do regardless of the result on Friday night. I think I'd be resting some blokes anyway if we weren't in the Challenge Cup final."

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

21 minutes ago, Jim Prendle said:

Remind me who Saints are playing in the semi?

Utterly irrelevant

[Jim Prendle]

Saints had no need whatsoever to rest that many players today.

It shows a huge amount of disrespect to the other teams fighting relegation when, with respect to Halifax, they could win at a canter next week with the team they selected today.

I've seen this happen before, but this is one of the more pointless ones in my opinion.