Medium term - Saints obviously have a pretty serious rebuild to take on in the next few years. Really does make you think that they should've been more ruthless with the length of the contracts they've been giving out recently.

This year, it's all going to be about if they can get their troops fit and ready for the back end. Going out of the cup will give them up to couple of weeks off and means they can focus on just getting the job done in the league. If they can put out a near first choice team in the play offs then they'll be thinking they can beat anyone in a one-off arm wrestle. I certainly wouldn't swap with them though.

Really stupid but it will depend on which team starts the best. We looked shocking in that first half and we conceded early and it got the crowd up. From there we just couldn’t cope. We lost the ruck and from that the quick PTB they ripped holes in our un-prepared defence. Like you said NK reminder of the Magic fixture and the season opener against them last year. We have it in us to win that game we just weren’t on top and nothing seem to stick on the night. Only saving grace I can see is when we play in CC they’ll not be 100% sure of us as we were poor in this game. Also when did we stop kicking on the last? I think saints could just grind out a win here but I am not confident. That edge with Makinson and hurrell was unbelievably poor, I think I could have beat hurrell at times in that game. Think they’ll target that all night and if Bennison is FB he’ll get peppered with kicks

I think the Bennison experiement at 1 is over. To be hooked off after 20-25 mins or whatever it was shows how it clearly wasn't working and I would be amazed if went back to that.

Welsby will be at 1 and Lomax at 6. Then Dodd or Mbye at 7 depending if Dodd is fit.

I think this, in part, comes back to the 'who has most improvement in them' discussion that we had post Good Friday. As NK says, we have these performances in us. Leeds against 12 men last season being the most glaring example. We completely switched off in that match in a similar way to how we started the KR game and, in both cases, looked like we were miles off any silverware. However, we can also 'switch on' in spectacular fashion as we did following the CCSF loss last year. We then get performances like Catalans away, the subsequent unbeaten run and the WCC.

When we raise our game it's in both attack and defence and I think that's the difference. Saints can raise their game for sure but it's been defensively only for a couple of seasons now. Their attack never really seems to improve by anything significant.

Are both sides likely to be as poor as we were in the first halves of our respective games? The short answer is probably yes. It won't determine where the trophies end up though.

We have that lethargy, carelessness, arrogance or whatever it is in us, where we just don't turn up in games but it very rarely happens in a big game under Matty Peet, so I do think Friday can actually be a massive help when it comes to the cup semi. The players now know that they need to be at the very top of their game to win that game and any risk of us not showing up that day is pretty much gone IMO.

The Saint 71- James Graham disagrees with you about Dodd, it will be interesting to see who is right. https://www.totalrl.com/james-graham-cl ... nrl-links/

The Saint 71- James Graham disagrees with you about Dodd, it will be interesting to see who is right. https://www.totalrl.com/james-graham-cl ... nrl-links/