Agreed, at this stage even keeping Mathers as a centre cum back-up FB/winger might have been safer than dabbling in the picked-over player market and definitely better than running on still fewer numbers.

Keith Senior, Michael Coady, Karl Pryce can all play centre and are released. I have heard that you were chasing Karl Pryce.

Have to give Millward a chance to build his own team, his own way. If he thinks Mathers is surplus to requirements then that's fine with me. At the end of the year we can all look back and see if he was right, but for now it does look like we have more fullbacks than we need and too few centres.

I also think after a bright start to 2011, Mathers fell off a cliff in terms of performance mid-year, and won't really be missed on the field. I've always found him to be a sound bloke though, so I'm glad he's sorted and hope he does well with Wakey... except when we play them.

What's the chances of Owen playing F/B for you guys this coming season?

Cas are still paying a % of his wage.

What % did you manage to negotiate?

33%

Personally I would have preferred to keep Richie at Cas as backup, but as has been said, you have to give Millward his chance to build the squad he wants.

I would just like to wish all the best to Richie at Wakefield, and just hope it does not come back to haunt us next season.

Can't say as I'm overly thrilled by it.

However, the no recall option and allowing him to play against us is a big mistake IMO

Have to hope the coach knows best, with a thin squad and not the full cap to play with I guess we'd have to compromise. Personally I would much rather have had Mathers in our 18 on match days, but if we did acquire a centre and everyone stays fit, then we have clearly put a 1 on the back of Richie Owen, so that limits his options and at that stage in his career he needs to play every week.

I strongly believe Mathers is a confidence and fish and ponds man, he will be in the top 3 for their player of the year, I'd have a £5 on it.

On a personal note, seems a proper bloke, looks after himself well away from the game, never attracted a moments criticism or any unwanted attention, played when and where he was asked, had changes in form as all players do but can go with nothing but praise from Cas fans in my opinion.... Form is temporary and class is permanant, I just hope we dont rue that next season!

Good bit of business by the club, too expensive to be a back up player( with owen being a far better fb he would be) and means we can bring in a centre now.

I'd imagine it's because there was no alternative. You + Wakey will both have wanted a permanent transfer, but he won't have been willing to drop his wage demands therefore this sort of loan will be in place.

I'm not his greatest fan, but being both half-price and English mitigates my lack of enthusiasm - we were starting to look a bit too HKResque for my liking.

I wonder if he'll apologise to the occupants of the Benidorm flats for his over-exuberant celebrations during the CC game last season?

Mathers had to go, Cas have a lot of money problems to sort out.Cas are in the brown stuff at the moment,

0/10

10/10

mark gasnier for centre

He could have a blinder against an old club as many do, but we should know his weaknesses. And most days he couldn't tackle a big dinner.
Should make the derby interesting.

I think that just shows how much Cas think of him as a player.

Look at all the weak tacklers Wakefield have now: Mathers, Fox, Smith, Mariano (was in the top 10 missed tackles last season, possibly first without checking).

Suprised with Moriano he is a good tackler what I have seen. He played with an injured hand/ wrist for last 3rd of season and this was where he missed more tackles. Had his op now so shouldnt be a problem.

Mathers you know better than me but I'll see how he goes.

2nd in the league in misses with 76 so I'd say it's a pretty consistant thing throughout the season with so many misses. First was Elliot Whitehead with 80.

Kyle Amor is 19th with 50 missed, and the only Cas player to make the list (surprisingly) is Adam Milner at 22 with 49 missed.

Other than the Rangi Chase (myself round in circles) in 7th

Not sure about that gronk, he played last 8-10 games with his wrist strapped. Had to go off the field on at least 2 occasions because of his wrist and not return. He dropped off a fair few clutching his wrist.

For some reason Kear kept playing him while injured. Not disputing he is second just that his injury didnt help.

Is Mathers really that weak??

Missed less tackles than Wellens,Hodgson and Grix.

This maybe one of the occasions where stats dont tell the full story i remember several times where he missed very easy tackles, but more frustratingly he sometimes just watched players run round him making no attempt to stop them. His defensive positioning is not the best either.

However for all his defensive frailties the thing that annoyed me most was the constant errors i remember that for much (and maybe all) of the season he had the highest number of errors of any castleford player this combined with conceding quite alot of penalties for a back means he was often putting us on the back foot.