Gandalf

James Smailes said on twitter earlier he expects Ellis and Sa to play.

Talanana, Sa and Ellis out.

Michaels debuts on the wing, Whiting at centre and Hadley in the second row.

Personally I would have gone with Lancaster on the wing and Michaels at centre but I can understand Radford taking the lower risk option.

Big night for Hadley, got to show he belongs at this level.

On the plus side Kevin Penny is playing opposite Lineham. Hope Sneyd puts a few testers up that way.

Good to see smailes has his finger on the pulse!

Good to see smailes has his finger on the pulse!

Shows what smailes must know then. No sa, ellis or talanoa. More reliable on this board. Even tougher ask now. Lets hope we can be competetive.

Is that the first game Talanoa has ever missed for us?

Tbf, even without Ellis I think the packs are reasonably well matched. Hill is a brilliant prop, Clark will be one of the worlds best one day, and Westwood is very good at what he does, but there's nothing outstanding about the rest. I know people with respond with Sims, but I've always thought of him as a "highlight reel" player without a great deal of substance. I guess we'll see. We just need our big men to get us a fair share of the game and hopefully Sneyd and Pryce can control it from there.

You don't rate Ratchford or last seasons top try scorer then?

I'm talking about your pack, 99% of games are won in the pack. But yes of course I do.