nothing worse than playing a team on the re bound especially in a derby, but like you say hull have majour key players out so who knows

I think you'll find that from our starting SL squad we have far more injuries than FC but injury discussion is just part of FC's excuses culture. The simple fact of the matter is, is that Rovers have a far bigger, stronger and fitter pack than FC and that's just the way it is.

Don't confuse the already confused with facts Zoddy.

If your talking fully fit packs i think your very wrong, and for injury hit sean long, fitzgibbon, omeley out makes a massive difference. id like to see how the dobbins would get on with out dobson galea and newton.

1) We're already a first choice half-back down since Morgan got miffed with Cooke.
2) We wouldn't be so stupid to sign a 33 year old half-back who's missed a third of his games over his last 2 years at Saints.
3) We have strength in depth in terms of creative players such as Murrell (better kicker out of hands than Dobson IMO) and Galea.
4) Clinton is our marque prop (as O'Meley is yours) but we'd still have Vella, Watts, Lovegrove (who has been sensational) not to mention Wheeldon who has had good spells recently.
5) We had the chance to sign Fitzgibbon during the off-season but we didn't need another backrower and wouldn't have anyway as Rovers policy is to sign new quota players to long term (3yrs) contracts.

At the end of the day the chickens are coming home to roost; FC will take a beating on Thursday and Rovers will finish above FC for a third year in a row...

You've dialled it down, I see, to just finishing above us then, from claiming top 3 for you and 9th at best for FC. Why is that exactly?

If Justin Morgan hadn't have fell out with Paul Cooke then we would have certainly won at least 3 more games and would be sitting in the top-three now.

Since Cooke's departure I thought we would finish around 6th.

I see FC finishing in 7th which would be better than expected but there is really no progress and long term strategy which I believe means FC fans like you will be subjected to more berating by myself for many seasons to come

So you are saying you expect the absence of one player to cost Rovers at least 6 points and three league table positions? That's a bit odd, considering you don't think any losses can be attributed to injuries. The fact is that Morgan could have kept Cooke but chose not to. That might be shoddy team management if it ends up costing Rovers a home tie in the play-offs, for example.

No progress, but 5 places better than last season. If Rovers finish 6th, would that be progress vs 4th last year in Zodworld? Certainly won't be progress off the pitch with crowds down year on year.

It would mean a home play off game, and a win would be progress would it not?

Debatable. Is a win vs 7th better than finishing 4th? Not really a like for like comparison.