Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:57 am  

Herbie Farnworth to The Dolphins, so there goes that pipe dream.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:43 am  

Zig wrote: Super League players out of contract at the end of 2023. https://www.totalrl.com/every-super-lea ... s-to-make/ Id take Roby for a year

Zig wrote: Super League players out of contract at the end of 2023. https://www.totalrl.com/every-super-lea ... s-to-make/ Id take Roby for a year

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:58 am  

Daryl Clarke is an interesting one off that list in my opinion.

Been off the boil a couple of years but there is a very good player in there still.

I think he will go very well in 23 and probably earn a new deal at Wire.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 8:34 am  

CM Punk wrote:

Herbie Farnworth to The Dolphins, so there goes that pipe dream.

Been huge interest from Union in him so it’s just great news he is staying in league.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:53 am  

So of our off contracts, i would be letting go of Isa, Mago, Miski, Silva, Singleton & Thornley. Take the options on Ellis, Cooper and Cust (offer cust a 2 year contract maybe if he wants it, i like him) and offer Smithies a decent but not crazy contract (i don't think we will need to offer him silly money, i can't see there being any NRL interest at present.

If all this came to be, along with the Bateman cap space, i reckon that would give us plenty of leeway to make a few solid signings, Second Row and Prop being the main target area's. I would love a new experienced hooker but how realistic that is i don't know. We would only get one if Powell was to leave and if he is not out of contract, that would be a shock. Plus all the stuff that has been mentioned in the past with his coaching training, i think Powell is here to stay, for better or worse and we will see how O'Neill and Forber turn out in time. I have hopes for both though, especially Forber.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:57 am  

Zig wrote: Super League players out of contract at the end of 2023. https://www.totalrl.com/every-super-lea ... s-to-make/ Keep Ellis and Cust. Release Isa, Miski, Mago and Singleton. Renouf Antoni & Lolohea in with Cust to 9. The rest is replaced in-house i.e Eckersley for Miski, Hill for that 5th choice prop option.

Zig wrote: Super League players out of contract at the end of 2023. https://www.totalrl.com/every-super-lea ... s-to-make/ Keep Ellis and Cust. Release Isa, Miski, Mago and Singleton. Renouf Antoni & Lolohea in with Cust to 9. The rest is replaced in-house i.e Eckersley for Miski, Hill for that 5th choice prop option.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:24 am  

Atoni made our props look like Shane Webke in his first outing against Catalans.

Can’t write him off but he didn’t look interested which suggests it may be attitudinal. Get another look at him tonight I guess. He’s been quite in the preseason games too apart from the Boxing Day game v Leeds where he was very good.

I’d like for us to look to more experienced players in the pack and I don’t think there is anyone playing in SL at the moment that we could look to fill the Prop and secondrow positions we need for 24.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:17 pm  

sergeant pepper wrote:

Keep Ellis and Cust.

Release Isa, Miski, Mago and Singleton.

Renouf Antoni & Lolohea in with Cust to 9. The rest is replaced in-house i.e Eckersley for Miski, Hill for that 5th choice prop option.

I’d like to see more from both Ellis and Cust before extending. I think both could potentially earn deals but Ellis needs to earn the right to get more minutes and show what he can do and Cust has things to work on as well. I like Cust but he can go missing in games and defensively he is not the best. He was exceptional against Salford in the friendly, which made his performance last week both surprising and disappointing but I do expect he’ll bounce back.

I agree with the others. We cannot under any circumstances give contracts out this time to guys like Isa and even Singleton, on the basis that they’re good lads. Make no bones about it, we’re behind St Helens and have work to do to catch them up. To do that we need better players and we need to ask ourselves the question as to whether first 17 guys we’re signing and giving contracts to would make their team. If you can get somebody like Singleton signed on back up player money, then maybe but we need to be more ruthless.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:58 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

I’d like to see more from both Ellis and Cust before extending. I think both could potentially earn deals but Ellis needs to earn the right to get more minutes and show what he can do and Cust has things to work on as well. I like Cust but he can go missing in games and defensively he is not the best. He was exceptional against Salford in the friendly, which made his performance last week both surprising and disappointing but I do expect he’ll bounce back.

I agree with the others. We cannot under any circumstances give contracts out this time to guys like Isa and even Singleton, on the basis that they’re good lads. Make no bones about it, we’re behind St Helens and have work to do to catch them up. To do that we need better players and we need to ask ourselves the question as to whether first 17 guys we’re signing and giving contracts to would make their team. If you can get somebody like Singleton signed on back up player money, then maybe but we need to be more ruthless.

I agree about being more ruthless, but letting the likes of Isa and Singleton go is also dependant on who is available and who is affordable. Letting two lesser paid players go to sign one higher paid player isn't always the best case of squad management.

I highly doubt we turn down the chance to sign top quality players just to keep Willie Isa for example.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:08 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

I’d like to see more from both Ellis and Cust before extending. I think both could potentially earn deals but Ellis needs to earn the right to get more minutes and show what he can do and Cust has things to work on as well. I like Cust but he can go missing in games and defensively he is not the best. He was exceptional against Salford in the friendly, which made his performance last week both surprising and disappointing but I do expect he’ll bounce back.

I agree with the others. We cannot under any circumstances give contracts out this time to guys like Isa and even Singleton, on the basis that they’re good lads. Make no bones about it, we’re behind St Helens and have work to do to catch them up. To do that we need better players and we need to ask ourselves the question as to whether first 17 guys we’re signing and giving contracts to would make their team. If you can get somebody like Singleton signed on back up player money, then maybe but we need to be more ruthless.

I think if anything Kris Radlinski deserves more criticism than he's received over the recruitment in the last few years.

Fail / mixed bag / jury out

Signings: Silva, Miski, Mago, Ellis, Thornley, G.Burgess, Clark, Bibby, Bullock, Sammut, Singleton,

Re-signings: Isa, Powell,

Field, French, KPP and Cust are probably the main success stories but outside of them its been poor for me. This combined with the lack of star quality in the academy are probably the two main reasons for the gap between us and Saints.