Wooden Stand wrote:Rawlins and Hesketh were our stand out forwards in the last match and (allied to the expected return of Shickell) have been for a while. They didn't play against Warrington last year. Neither did JD (as Jamie Shepherd stood in). This year we have Law as well as Jodie Sheriffe as interchange props. Lewis Reid now returned shows he is improving massively each match - a real bonus.
White has been more than good cover for Moss and has potential to keep improving as well as his good try scoring strike rate. Leatherbarrow is now really fulfilling his potential and his all-round game (including fantastic goal kicking ability) is now contributing more than Obst did at this stage of the season.
This year Buster has shown he can do 80 minutes (which he didn't last year) and the unfortunate injury to Ryan Smith means that the really exciting Joe Parkinson can come on to cover half back and hooker if needed).
Daley Williams is already doing as well as Haythornthwaite last year. Ritchie Barnett is I believe a natural high quality player and is starting to show it more now than when Semi was here. Semi and Korki were good for us given their SL background but even then didn't break any pots.
My prediction is that Marchy will slowly but surely get more and more from this committed group of players and Cougars will end the season as high up the table as they did last year despite the bad start.
I respect your opinion, but completely disagree. Whilst I accept Leatherbarrow has the potential, he's not there yet and I would have Obst in our team every day of the week. Paddy is a fair prop but Law is not in the same league as Korky. Love or hate him, he attracted 3 defenders every time and made them work hard in the wrestle. Jode was with us last year but IMO is a shadow of the player we saw. He's never going to be a big line breaker, but I recall him single handedly hurting players in the tackle from his big, legal hits. This year I have only seen glimpses of that. Parkinson is potential, I'll give you that.
The Wolves squad isn't massively changed from last year so it will depend on who is picked, but the game itself will be the best indication on whether we are better or worse than last year. I think we'll struggle to keep the loosing margin to 50.
