One of the disadvantages of relying primarily on the Academy to stock future Wire squads is that you need to play inexperienced players who will need to work through their errors in competitive games. I suspect there are not too many on here that think Hayes is a shoe in for HB, he does look a good prospect but we are only going to find out 12 months or more down the line. At the moment Burgess has either been lucky or has been very good at judging the right time to field players like Holroyd and TR and we have reaped the benefit. I think it's great that Tai has been dropped and (atm) replaced by a young Academy lad. Track back a year and we all thought he was a breath of fresh air because his defence shored up that edge. So now not only do we have real competition at centre, but we are also demanding some attacking flair and nouse.

Genuinely can't get my head round hating one of our own players.



Anyway hope Leyland has a good game, Sam has made all our bellyaching look daft.

I thought the same seeing the way some people talk about Ratchford, he's been a great servant and doesn't warrant such vitriol.

I didn't see any vitriol? Just people passing opinion on his selection. I think most people would regard Ratchford warmly.

Not sure saying someone is 'haunting the 17' is a particularly warm sentiment.

And in fairness you’d be right in my personal opinions towards Ratchford. IMO he’s been drastically overrated as a rugby league player throughout his career and, as such, has cost us on many occasions….also heard a few things that go against his ‘nice guy’ image.