[Bullseye]

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 11:22 am  

Haha. I saw he was 18th man at the weekend. I like his commitment but he's behind a few now surely. If we wanted to rest Donaldson and Lawrence for instance I'd be looking at the likes of Waine, Peposhi and Mason first.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 11:32 am  

Bullseye wrote:

Haha. I saw he was 18th man at the weekend. I like his commitment but he's behind a few now surely. If we wanted to rest Donaldson and Lawrence for instance I'd be looking at the likes of Waine, Peposhi and Mason first.

And Bailey Liu.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 12:01 pm  

Think we might see a couple of changes, don’t think he will risk Keyes, maybe rest Lawerence. Agree we need Ott on the bench after Souters superhuman effort.
Maybe Waine or Liu to come in on the bench, and give Armitage a run out.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 4:28 pm  

We do have good quality options, which is unheard of for us in recent times. I think Nobby will be using the squad. Ott is an obvious swap. Armitage if fit, would like to see him play. We know what Hallas is about, but Waine is possibly ahead of him.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 6:08 pm  

We definitely do not need to be playing Keyes to death - we know he is susceptible to injury and we have a few options - I'm sure Nobby will be looking to rotate where possible.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 6:23 pm  

I'd expect Donaldson, Lawrence, Keyes and Gill to be rested with Waine, Mason, Ott and Armitage to come in to replace them.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Tue Feb 11, 2025 9:28 pm  

dddooommm wrote:

I'd expect Donaldson, Lawrence, Keyes and Gill to be rested with Waine, Mason, Ott and Armitage to come in to replace them.

Id be stunned if all those players are rested as that is every ounce of leadership we have barring lilley id expect to see it more staggered

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Wed Feb 12, 2025 9:11 am  

From what we've seen, London has barely even got a team at the moment. Providing we don't fall in love with ourselves after last Sunday, we should beat them quite handily.

As for changes, the whole point of having a first-team squad is to be able to rotate the team. We ought to be resting a few and bringing in Armitage, Waine, Lui and Ott. It's a long season in the Champ, plus we have the 1895 and Challenge Cups as well.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Wed Feb 12, 2025 10:03 pm  

paulwalker71 wrote:

From what we've seen, London has barely even got a team at the moment. Providing we don't fall in love with ourselves after last Sunday, we should beat them quite handily.

As for changes, the whole point of having a first-team squad is to be able to rotate the team. We ought to be resting a few and bringing in Armitage, Waine, Lui and Ott. It's a long season in the Champ, plus we have the 1895 and Challenge Cups as well.

Agreed, but it's about finding that balance between keeping the squad fresh with no disruption and making too many changes that it affects fluidity and momentum.

Re: Round 1 - London (H) : Thu Feb 13, 2025 8:38 am  

I have a vague memory of some rules restricting the number of hours/matches players can play in the course of a season. Has that rule become active for this season? If this is the case it makes a lot of sense to use our big squad and rotate who is playing from the very beginning of the season, otherwise we'll reach the end of the season and our most important players will have used up their hours.