You have to put things into perspective.

Lino came on against a team with young halves and young full back/winger. Had Truemam and Russell stayed on then I would imagine they would’ve had more space and success.

Though having competition will be good for Lino. We may see the best of him.

Just my opinion but once our ground improvements are complete I would hope this boxing day fixture could alternate between Leeds and Wakefield.

It's been traditionally there because of the under soil heating.

I agree but he looked busier and Russell drppedvthe ball and gave penalties away, which is nothing to do with opposition.
Long way to go. I haven't written Russell off by any means. I like him a lot.
But Lino is not out of it either.
All of them need forwards to get us moving down field though.

I was shocked at the size of Trueman, he is an absolute unit at 6, similar size to Brad Fittler at 6. All in all a decent run out I reckon. With a decent proportion of our starting 17 out it was a good hit out.

Out of the new signings I thought Cam Scott was a really stand out, fantastic in defence and solid in attack. Nikotemo only once or twice got a decent ball in space to run and looked like a powerful lad, pulled off a couple of nice tackles too. Hall was solid against Newman, Rourke looked solid too, be interesting to see him trialed on the wing.

Special mention to Rodwell and Uele, for me the top 3 forwards on the field by a country mile, Rodwell would walk into any team in SL and Uele is looking really trim and ready for the step up.

I wouldn’t say fantastic as he got stepped by Sivo who went on a run downfield. Luckily he’s slow so didn’t get there. Otherwise defence was pretty good though and a nice break. Was definitely a strong performance from him.

Personally, I thought the best two on the pitch for us that first 40 was Pratt and Nikitemo. Then followed by Scott.

Trueman is quite tall for sure. I felt we could have been deeper on the left and when Jowitt gets back and gives him some options to pass deep to we will see some good plays. Roarke looked good on the ball with some decent runs into the line but he really needs to learn from Max where to be putting himself to create options for the halves and potentially create space for outside. Something imo Jowitt is the best in SL at doing and strongest part of his game.

IMHO Full back is the most influential and important position in a team.

Jowitt will make a huge difference along with TJ to the backs.

Don’t agree with Sivo stepping, he got put through a huge hole in fairly broken play. Looking at Sivo, don’t think he’d be able to step a Turtle. Agree with Jowitt in the team, but more so his positional awareness in defence when they kick. We were pinned back a lot by their superior kicking game, only Trueman for us put any sort of decent kick in, Russell and Lino’s were atrocious failing to get passed the half way line on multiple occasions.

Not sure who we’ve got next but I’m sure the game against Leeds will put us in good stead.

That will hopefully work for Truemam when the big lads target him in attack, as they do

Rodwell got skinned three times - one of which led to Connor’s first try, another that cost us 40 metres and another which cost us 70 metres. Watch the highlights back, he didn’t have a good game, but that’s okay, it’s preseason and now he knows he has to play the likes of Croft and Connor each week.

As for Pratt, I’d really like to see him play left centre. What he achieved last season wasn’t just good for a young lad, it was brilliant generally. 20 tries, some of those from nothing, and can’t remember him making many mistakes. Sure, it was Championship, but I’d prefer to see him over Hall, who’ll just do a steady job. And while he could be a cover option for wing, I’d always prefer a specialist winger like Russell.

Totally agree on Uele - thought he was awesome. Not at all worried about getting beat down the middle this season. If our halves manage us well, I’m still confident we’ll be in the mix.

Yes. Sorry to say I agree about Rodwell.

You can never tell with forwards though. Sometimes you get them on Boxing Day in the middle of their heavy weights prep which makes them look sluggish.
I'm not worried about Rodwell.
Whereas Caleb looked to have trimmed a little bit which worked for him.