i found out on thursday see"challenge cup"

I'm not going to condemn any player who chooses to play for his country over his club, especially when that country has appointed him captain. It's a huge honour no matter how unimportant the fixture looks to us.

Something can only really be classed as stupid or a bad idea if there was an option for it not to happen. That's not the case here. It's an unfortunate conjunction of events which I'm sure the club and players would rather had not happened. But we are where we are and there's not much point worrying about it.

Not just playing but captaining a nations team! In contracts n didn't know we'd draw saints.
Good for them though really. Imagine captaining a national team. Unlucky for us. But ellis n mini come in. Fresh

I guess Ellis's early guilty plea makes even more sense now.

poop happens. We've enough to win if we play to our full potential. The player we miss most in the squad when he's not playing (Houghton always plays so isn't included) is Ellis. Mini is also high up that list so if they are both back then we'll still have a top back row.

Can move Watts to second row after his break for our second try. What a line!

Who's to say Minichiello will be fit? Missed a lot of games last season due to the same injury.

My sentiments entirely. Pritchard played 26 times for N.Z & became `Samoan' when they stopped selecting him, played 4 times for Samoa since.
(born in Sydney) according to his career stats.
Ditto. Manu 13 caps for N.Z 4 for Tonga. Born in Wellington.
They should be showing some allegiance to the club that pays their wages, for what is the most important game of the season so far, not travelling halfway
around the world for what is effectively a `cobbled together' curtain raiser.

He missed just three out of thirty-three games last season.