Easy to forget Welsby is still only 22; still plenty of development in his game and he knows that. Given Wigan fans saw the rise of Tomkins (the talented one not the other two) I’d have thought Wigan fans would have understood that maverick and smart arris are the different sides of the same coin, depending on the colour of your shirt. Like him or loath him his time is now; he’s top of the try assist charts, becoming ever increasingly senior in the Saints squad and his personal highlights reel is basically complete already, scoring down under in the WCC, at Wembley and the match winner in the 2020 GF.

Obviously being in the hunt for a historic quadruple makes next week huge for us, but it’s the trophy of least concern for me. Given how congested the league is at the moment I don’t think the usual “just get top two; get the home semi and plan from there” is going to work; it’s going to take a run of performances and most likely finish top. We have both an advantage and a hinderance at the moment with the game in hand. If us being knocked out the cup gets the game arranged as not a midweek dirge, then that’s a small silver cloud.

We won the GF last year with long term injuries to Grace, Dodd and Walmsley. The year before it was Fages and Bentley. If we lose Lomax, of course it’s a blow, but we adjust every year, and it’s far more about combinations of injuries which become a concern. Last year ahead of the CC semi we lost Hopoate, Bennison, Dodd and Lomax’s left arm all in rapid succession. The spine was our weakest depth already and we ended up with Davies in the halves and having to hide Lomax at fullback so he avoided contact on his arm. Still took a poor individual performance from a kid on the wing and a rogue one armed pass from Lomax for us to lose that day. Fast forward and we beat Warrington with basically our first choice pack and backline missing. Attitude is everything at Saints this year and we should be confident if Wellens gets that right (that I am less convinced on…) irrespective of who is or isn’t on the field

i think its a fair suggestion and one that should definitely be considered, if the minutes rule does get implemented, but i also think there would be opposition to it. If i take our current pack we could have Havard, O'Neill, Thompson, Faz, Junior and Ellis starting, with Walters, Mago, Dupree, Byrne, Hill, Leeming, Eckersley & Farrimond on the bench, thats pretty impressive, and thats before we get to the upcoming youngsters. Another slightly different slant to it, and it falls into the suggestion you make about all clubs having scholarship, academy, reserves and 1st team (which i completely agree with and have aired my view on this in relation to the IMG gradings) is that in that bench of 8 you need to have at least x homegrown players which is promoting clubs to develop their own players. The other part to having 8 is how many can be used whether that be number of interchanges / number of the 8 that can be used, but all good points for a discussion

Yeh, I think a bigger bench could have merit. It would give more tactical variation to the game and make it easier to bring youngsters on.


I do get the argument that it would benefit "bigger" clubs more, I don't necessarily agree with that but its worth a trial or a discussion at least?

I’d be all in favour of a bigger bench, as a start increase to 6 but 2 of the 6 have to be under 21 at the start of the season.

I agree but it doesn't mean that there should be more substitutions, just a greater choice.

I've always believed that you should have eight players on the bench (substitutes) but but no interchanges, once a player is off he can't return unless it's a hia.
Allow six substitutions from those eight players. At least two of the players should be 21 or under at the start of the season and four should be home grown.