I totally agree with previous posters pick our best team for this game and the wigan game.
Salford is the game for rotation and where Paulo begins his late surge for his run at the man of steel awarrd
I'm not proposing a particularly weakened team, just resting Walmsley or Roby (then rest the other against Salford) and one other (Lomax or even Coote). I don't want a full first choice XIII playing against Leeds, then a very weakened side against Salford, nor the first choice XIII playing both (then backing up against the scum).
If we win the next three games I can't see past us winning the league leaders shield. That would leave us with three games left & because of our superior points difference can afford to lose two of the last three matches.
As I’ve mentioned before, it becomes a bit of a lottery when teams pick and choose which games to go full strength and which to go under strength as different teams will target different games. Led to a fair amount of upsets and one sided scorelines after the restart in union. For example though a fair few are suggested we target Salford as a game for rotation as it’s in between Leeds and Wigan for us. On the other hand Salford might target the game against us as it’s in between Wigan and Warrington games for them.
My suggestion would be to go full strength against Leeds & Wigan and as full strength as possible against Salford, assess the players that may need a rest and select accordingly. My reasoning would be that we probably need 3 wins out of 6 to guarantee top 4 so winning these next 3 games would give us a scope to rotate on a more wholesale scale in the last block of 3 games.
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
The problem with resting players wholesale in the final 2/3 games and accepting some losses is that we lose momentum. We should be looking to build to a peak for the SF and Final. It's all opinion, but I'd prefer us to get the rotation out of the way over the next 3/4 games, then play full strength the final 2 regular games and keep that going through the semi and final.
Fair do's, I agree we need to rest Walmsley, Roby, Coote and Lomax. The last time I looked at our fixtures we have 2 sets of 3 games in the space of each week I was thinking more of resting those major players in the second set. Pick up those two wins against Leeds and Wigan we can more or less cherry pick 2 other games were we rest half the team on 1 fixture and half a team on another fixture.
Games are coming thick and fast and losing momentum might not occur because of the congestion. Holbrook rested quite a few players at the back end of the season but can't remember which teams, I know London was one of them.
I agreed with your last post and now this one. We need to manage and plot our way through not just crash on regardless. Having mass rotations 2 or 3 weeks away from the big games is suicide in my view. Players will be rusty, loss of timing, fitness a touch off the boil.....
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I think that the crowded fixture list turns selection into a game of chess and I don’t envy the coach his job because if it goes wrong he will face criticism.
On the Holbrook and London point, I thInk he simply didn’t risk players with injury histories that rendered them as risks on the plastic pitch. It didn’t work very well in terms of results against London.
We've got 6 games in 3 weeks so I would imagine most of our first 17 will be getting 1 game a week with 1 or 2 of pivotal players getting a full week off. In my opinion its a bit too early to start a rotation straight away if we lose our first 3 games because of rotation then we might possibly have to put too much effort into winning our last 3 games. In that situation we could be in a burn out situation prior to the play offs.
Its going to be about 2 weeks when we see the final 4 teams, for Woolf we don't know if he wants to win the LLS first and then go for the Grand Final.
I would rest plenty players over the next 3 weeks even if it means losing top spot. I still think we will finish top anyway. Give some of our top players a nice break but make sure everyone is fit and ready to go 2 weeks out from the play offs so that they can hit the ground running, blow out the cobwebs and fine tune the combinations.
screaming in the family corner, scaring the kiddies
I`ll go with Joynty on this he was adamant, players need to be playing, no need to rest players.
It looks as though Woolf is going full strength on Friday against Leeds, then the following Monday against Salford anyone suffering from fatigue, bumps and bruises will be rested but as yet no wholesale changes.
https://www.facebook.com/32425564047...4563114225475/
The above is a short version on Facebook. Full interview Saints TV.
I think he’s anticipating resting a few v Salford.
Win the next 2 games and get an 80% or better win rate. Then pick the games to rest players depending on other results.
Im not sure mate. I imagine so. I think we could forfeit a couple of games and still finish top. All teams will lose games to one another over the next few weeks so i can’t see a team overtaking us even if we lose a couple. Other than Warrington i think we can beat any team in the league even resting a couple of big players.
screaming in the family corner, scaring the kiddies