Putting the team together for this week
In a lot of ways much easier as those available are going to be playing!
Blake Austin
Weighing up what we do with Blake Austin, whether he's ready to play or not. We're still stewing that one over I think. He's trained well the last few days. I'm just a coach that's always conscious of the longer-term picture rather than just the short-term. I'll stew on that a little longer yet.
Sezer's successful appeal
I spent a lot of time on Monday going through all the trips that have been charged over the last couple of years and a lot of the Grade Bs are minor actually but Aidan got done with a C, which is an intentional trip. We just felt it was reactionary rather than intentional. He just got done by some exceptional footwork and he's an on-the-ball tackler, he never uses his legs and hardly ever tackles around the legs. He just got put off balance and it was an instinct thing that he had no conscious thought of. We thought we had a case, we had a good hearing, they listened to us, deliberated for a fair period of time and came back with some good news that it went from a two to a one-match ban.
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Was he tempted to appeal the Rhyse Martin ban?
I think a lot has been said about that one, I believe, through the press and social media. Probably not too sure what to say about that one myself. I think the severity of a lot of the charges is on the high end. To miss a game for a player at any stage is a major punishment, they train to play some more, it means a lot to them. We've got a devastated player who is missing a game for that.
I think it's disappointing for fans to miss the best players playing. We've lost three experienced and in-form players in one weekend for incidents that didn't hurt or harm anyone. I understand the game is trying to protect itself from players being injured and hurt, but it's disappointing, particularly for Rhyse.
Hull KR
I believe they have a bunch of players coming back so it's a bit of unknown or different to what it has been. They'll be going back to where they were a month or two ago with some veteran players coming back into the picture. They'll be desperate and hungry, they're playing at home and they've had a long turnaround compared to our short turnaround, so I think most things are in their favour.
The importance of the game
It's the most significant because it's the one we play this week. It's vital and it means everything to us to go there and represent ourselves well and to continue to go about things the way we have been and see how that looks at the end of the game.
Liam Sutcliffe's exit
It's a difficult one, professional sport, in the salary cap-driven league that we are, there's a lot to it. There's an opportunity for Sutty there to secure his long-term future. He's done the club well, he's playing well at the moment. It's one of those things that happen in pro sport. I wish him well, I appreciate how he's gone about playing in recent times while that negotiation has been going on in the background.
Levi Edwards
Levi is still on loan, he's got a very minor knee complaint so he's not available to play this weekend anyway.
Oli Field
He's getting game time, he's had a very disruptive season with injury and lack of game time and lack of quality through reserves, so he's getting some good, competitive rugby at the minute and it's doing him well.
Max Simpson
Max had surgery maybe two weeks ago. The week after the Toulouse game he had that surgery and is facing a three to four-month recovery. He'll be pretty good by the start of pre-season training.
Danny McGuire
I don't know Danny but his playing career speaks for itself. I don't know much about him as a coach other than his players are playing with lots of energy and competing hard. I believe they've cranked the intensity up this week in preparation for this week's game. I'm sure it will mean a lot to him to be coaching against his former team but we'll be doing our best to make it an unhappy night.
The scheduling
I know we need to play games to generate the income and that's an important aspect as everyone wants money in the game. I think the loan and dual-reg and all those rules, some don't support the frequency of games played during the season. If you get the training loads managed well you won't be training that hard or intensely all the time anyway. Some blokes love playing and would happily sub out the training. We'll be doing our best to take care of our players and have as many available as we can.
Are there too many games?
I haven't been here in this capacity long enough to know. Woolfy has done it all here and accomplished a lot so he's in a better position to make a comment about that.
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