It sounds a little more promising .

Uncle Tony's reputation in the game is masking a few of his failings currently regarding youth and team discipline, if it were an inexperienced Aussie, we'd be asking for him to go by now

We do need to be careful with the likes of Martin, basically cone from a few reserve ganes to playing every week. Happened to Litten last year.

Not a bad squad. We have 3 hookers in the there so maybe why Balmforth not in..Again we don't know the ins and outs. But can't see Smith keeping him on if he doesn't rate him. Just could be a fitness thing that's hes not happy with ?

We do, but two are going to be playing at halfback, I'd guess Charles will be on the bench and come on firm Houghton and move Brown to 9 or 13 like the London gane, but seems alot of changing when they could just bring on Balmforth.

I'm sure Dan will put something out about it.

If Tindall is fit then I can understand if he comes in to the squad, as good as Lewis Martin has been for us a rest certainly wouldn't be a bad thing for him. That said with Sutcliffe back in and based on form I'd actually keep McIntosh in the centre and drop Carlos and have Tindall & Martin on the wing. Guess a lot depends also on the fitness of Scott too.

What does concern me, is that even with Houghton coming off with tightness in his hamstring Smith still doesn't seem to want to include Balmforth again even in a 21 man squad. I can only think as he played reserves last week that he doesn't have any future at the club under Smith which is a shame as he's certainly seems a decent player and offers us something we haven't got at 9 and just not seemingly been given an opportunity as we still obsess in flogging Houghton for 80mins, even though after about 60mins he's just no longer effective.

Yes we do have 3 hookers but as Dave points out two of them are playing in the halves.

So unless Charles is going to be on the bench and get more time than just a cameo appearance I fail to see any reason not to include Balmforth if there is no fitness/injury concerns. If he is fit to play and just not getting selected at this current time I doubt he will at any point moving forward unless we lose Houghton for a period of time.

Smith should have let Houghton retire last season , His wage could have been used to strengthen other areas we are struggling in now .

Start of a big 2-3 weeks for us.

If we could win the next three games (and I know that is a tall order given our current circumstances) then everyone is going to feel a good deal more buoyant about the months ahead on the back of a cup quarter-final to come and a derby win.

On the other hand, lose all three and the season will effectively be over before April fools day (fairly apt, some might say!!) with the only realistic goals of finishing above Cas and London to look forward to, while wistfully hoping for better news regarding 2025.

We really could do with a win (and a decent performance to go with it) on Saturday to put some hope/energy into the fanbase. Hoping some of these rumoured player returns are true and we can at least have something starting to resemble a first-choice line-up to judge.

The issue is, with the lack of quality domestically who could we have realistically signed to strengthen our squad. If he was a quota player, then yes definitely, I still like Houghton, but he shouldn't be playing 80 minutes.