11 Louis Anderson

13 Vinnie Anderson

21 Matty Blythe

25 Chris Bridge

6 Lee Briers

16 Garreth Carvell

9 Jon Clarke

18 Michael Cooper

3 Martin Gleeson

20 Simon Grix

24 Ben Harrison

23 Chris Hicks

14 Mickey Higham

2 Paul Johnson

4 Matt King

22 Lee Mitchell

10 Paul Rauhihi

12 Ben Westwood

15 Paul Wood
No Morley or Riley who will play FB ? seems light on backs that squad but well good enough to win
See Gleeson is in the squad so that's that rumor put to bed !

Hicks to full back
Johnson and King on the wings
Grix and Bridge in the centres
Gleeson and Briers in the halves
Rau and Carvell to start at prop
Higham to start at hooker
Benny and the Andersons to start back row

Clarke, Bridge and Mitch/Wood/Cooper/Harrison to be the bench

Good to see Carvell back.

I'm sure someone said Carvell was out for the season or at least 5 months

good to see a strong team named for this. Hopefully a decent scoreline will give the team some more confidence going forward....

Moz deserves a rest for me, suppose that Riley being dropped will helped him become a better play, again!

I think he could play Bridge at fullback.

Would have been nice to see Penny, at least on the bench.

It would of been ideal for Penny, looks as though Smith wants to go in all guns blazing.

Why doesn't he just play Bridge and Briers in the halves? Last week Bridge, Briers and Gleeson were all playing out of their preferred positions and it nearly cost us.

Briers at stand-off, Bridge at scrum-half and Gleeson back at centre.

I am not saying it will cost us this week, but surely it makes sense. Gleeson offers very little at stand-off.

That certainly seems to be the consensus.

Exactly my thoughts....

Bridge covering centre and the bench - now thats what i call a utility player

Sounds like a folk-rock group.

#

Riley has a leg injury apparently.

Why not give VAnderson a run at 6? He has done it before and it might be a good game for him to try a more involved role. That allows room for Westwood, Harrison and LAnderson in the pack.

Bridge at FB? Grix and Gleeson stay at centre.

Morley deserves the rest as does Riley (even though he has a thigh strain). I'm surprised Penny isn't in the squad. Thought Higham might have been rested too. But squad says lets try to nil them.

All the people that went to the reserves game last Saturday will tell you exactly why Penny isn't playing. He touched the ball maybe three times, did absolutely nothing in the game apart from as said in another post run around hugging people.

I like the lad but the fact is he just isn't good enough at the moment, Believe me there were 16 more reserve players more deserving than him last Saturday.

I hope he makes it but the fact is he has a long way to go

why dont we sell penny he has clearly got no future in the squad

Is it Penny's fault that the ball only came to him three times? And before you state 'well he should have come looking' ask yourself this; is he playing under instruction to stay on his wing and maintain the attacking structure.

Personally I would have played Penny against York, it would have been a great opportunity to give have a run out with the first team and (hopefully) get some tries under his belt, which could only help his confidence.

If the ball is not being worked to his channel it would hardly be his fault. You would then only be instructing the winger to come in-field to take a scoot after a kick return.

Either way it is easy for a winger to be a passenger. Although he should have been used to seeing no ball playing outside King.

Well actually at times he did go looking for the ball, in fact I think at one point he was on the opposite wing, with the other winger, it seemed to me that no one was that botherd about passing to him, then again they didn't need to most of the time, the poor lad looked lost on occasions positional wise.

I'm not anti Penny in any way, would love to see him become a regular first team player, but until he learns to completely understand the game, and understand what is expected of him from the coach and the team, he's going to struggle but he doesn't seem frightened of hard work so good luck to the lad. But not yet

You do identify an interesting point. Penny has been playing on the right wing for the reserves, most players have a bias to passing to the left (that is not a criticism of O'Brien by the way), against Hull KR, Rhys Williams scored a couple of tries on the left wing.

Whoosh, positioning in what sense? I have seen him get caught in two minds on last tackle kicks, where he doesn't seem that keen to drop back, but I guess he can use his pace to get back. Other than that he looks perfectly fine to me.

Most right handed players will always be a stronger passer of the ball to their left. Most teams run drills that reverse the play so that players try and develop to both sides but you end up with a sort of 'manufactured' right sided passer in most cases. Very few people end up totally comfortable and some (Iestyn Harris springs to mind) end up reaching the top of the game without being hardly able to pass to their weaker side.

I bet most centres say they have a preference for the left edge.

im not going to speculate on Pennys' attitude because frankly i haven't got a clue what he's like outside rugby.
but
what i do recall is the arrogant way he scored the 'infamous' try that got him a dressing down off then coach JL. (i'll be honest it didn't bother me)
Maybe and i do stress maybe
TS might wait until he grows up on a personal level

just a thought from a guy with no insider knowledge i wait (want) to be corrected