After beating Hull KR to make it just one defeat in the last 10 in Super League, how much is everyone looking forward to travelling to face the reigning champions tomorrow night?

The mood among the group is very positive, and everyone’s looking forward to going there and making sure we cement our place in the top four.

Every week we talk about how massive the games are, and this week is certainly no exception.

We know if Leeds win at Wigan tonight and we win at Saints, then we’ll head into the final two fixtures of the regular season in second place.

So it goes without saying how vital this game tomorrow night is, particularly as we’d be celebrating a win at the home of the champions. The spirit within this group would be even higher.

But we’ll be going over there bracing ourselves for a St Helens backlash after what they dished up at Leeds last week.

I obviously know Kez (Saints boss Keiron Cunningham) very well from our time playing together at St Helens, and I know how determined he’ll be to fire them up for our game tomorrow night.

He admitted he was embarrassed with the way his side played at Leeds (they lost 46-18 at Headingley last Friday) – I’ve been there myself in feeling that way over the years – and that he’ll be expecting a big response from his players.

Having said that, I thought Leeds did a great job in making them play as poorly as they did, so it’s our job to give Saints a similar sort of headache at Langtree Park.

And is the squad looking in good shape after the relatively short turnaround from Sunday to this Friday?

We’ve got no major injury issues at all right now.

In fact, we could very soon have a full squad available.

We’ve had Chris Bailey back training with the full squad on the field this week and, while he’s not available for selection for Friday, he could be in contention to play the following week.

After this, there’s only Josh Johnson, who’s now back running on the field after his ankle injury but is still in rehab – although for not that much longer.

This year, we have had our dark days regarding injuries.

But we’ve come through it and challenged our squad to overcome these losses, which they’ve never failed to do.

With such a relatively healthy squad, is this as hard as it’s been for you to select a 17?

Possibly, but that’s the way you’d always want it, and with the way the youngsters have been coming through, that selection process has become even more interesting.

We’re at a point where we’ve been talking about Nathan Mason, Josh Johnson and Jake Connor – not so much Jared Simpson who’s gone under the radar even more than them – for a long time and it’s starting to get to a point where we HAVE to play them as they are ready to play.

It’s good for us for many reasons.

For a start, they’re homegrown players and the salary-cap implications of having these young players is that you can spend your money elsewhere can’t you?

It’s also good for our junior section people to see players like Jake, Nathan, Jared and Josh coming through, while Olllie Roberts isn’t far off playing, either.

Are these youngsters getting the chance to play because you’re adopting a rotation system in a bid to keep the players fresh?

Not at all.

It’s selection rather than rotation we go for.

We just try and pick the best team to win the game that week, for example against Widnes, Anthony Mullally missed out because we wanted to pick a more athletic team on their quick artificial surface.

That’s the policy we’ve once again adopted for this game at Saints.

The side we’ve gone for is the one we believe is good enough to get the two League points – and that’s the reason why Nathan Mason’s in the 19.

It’s the old adage that if you’re good enough you’re old enough.

Nathan is now 21, and he has waited patiently for his chance to play at this level, and it’s fully deserved.