I was thinking about this to myself today.

I was pondering if Hayes and Drinky get 4/5 wins on the bounce, would Sam’s hand be forced to sit Williams on the bench when he returns.

T Smith always put the returning player back in after an injury, regardless of how well the replacement player was playing and how long the injury ruled him out for.
Which annoyed me tbh. It sends the wrong message out ‘the untouchables’ I called them.

Williams’ last performance in a Wire shirt should not guarantee him a starting place.

Same, it would be ideal, but I'm a Wire fan, so naturally pessimistic!

I wasn't implying that Williams should or would walk straight back into the starting team, just that IF Sam wanted to bring him back in, on the showing of last week the one who should be dropped isn't Leon Hayes.

The thing is Drinkwater is our of contract at the end of this year. So I guess we as a club need to know if we will be in a position to start the 2025 season with just Hayes and Williams.
We have a similar situation with Dufty and Thewlis. I would imagine that Thewlis will be given a couple of games at fullback in the next few weeks with maybe Lindop on the wing (Say against London) to see if we will be ready for Thewlis to take over at FB next year.

We are sort of at the point where Saints were a couple of years ago when they would have been wondering if they should move Fages and Coote on to let Welsby and Dodds take those spots.
I think that situation was a bit more clear cut because they probably had more games under their belt in their preferred positions.
I know there is a bit of a downer on Drinkwater since the wheels fell off last year but I am just not sure we could take the leap of faith and go all in with just Hayes and Williams next year unless we have some other back up. But I wouldn't want to sign another Aussie halfback on a 2 year deal so it wouldn't surprise me if Drinkwater signed another year.
A real leap of Faith would be we push forward Harthill (didn't his dad play for us a while ago) and maybe have Powell covering Hooker and halfback next year.

There’s a lot of common sense in this post!

Particularly getting minutes into Thewlis in the full back spot sooner rather than later. I suppose we then need to look at wing stock, with Russell on the outer and Thewlis largely expected to move to full back.

If next years 1, 6, 7 & 9 are already at the club, we should use every opportunity that we can to get them ready, while not limiting out chances in 2024.

Losing Dufty will remove one of our most potent attacking players. Thewlis *may* be a better defensive fullback than Dufty but Im not sure he will offer as much in attack.

Thewlis will be an excellent future full-back - he is also elusive and VERY quick. Dufty's money can then be spent in areas where it's needed most.

Thewlis will also put his body on the line for the cause and not deliberately avoid contact all game due to an upcoming holiday in Spain.

Thewlis isn't close to Duftys pace the example against Adam Swift showed that last year also he hasn't got a cut out pass yet that I've seen in games.

He is undoubtedly brave (a little too much at times) and I remember him scoring a great try against NW Crusaders in last years pre-season.

But I agree we need to see if he can replicate that against better opposition, and learn the other attack facets such as the cut out pass adding to the offensive line.

I'm not sure if he will get the time at Full Back Cai Taylor-Wray looks at great prospect and Thewlis may find himself on the wing going forward.

It was debated on here at the time, whether we needed Dufty and many (Including me) concluded that we didn`t need him when we already had Thewlis.

Powell wanted Dufty as a potential match winner but also to shore-up his influence in the dressing room with the resistance and push back from some of our players he was receiving.

We haven`t adapted our game to suit Dufty`s speed and acceleration (Which is a failure of the coaching staff, rather than Dufty`s). He would be devastating from a scrum move by Wire, especially from a scrum in our own half where there is the extra room for a kick behind the scrum defence or even using him to create a try for a supporting winger from an overlap.

I expect Dufty to leave when his current contract expires at the end of this season to allow Thewlis to play fullback with the bonus that we can use the quota space elsewhere in the team.