I like Watkins and met him a few times as I'm sure others on here have , he always came across really well . In the end though when he left he was , due to the injury a shadow of his former self , so on that Hurrell was better value . Now as above you have to compare Watkins to Newman as Hurrell is under contract as he was then .

Watkins had a good pre-season by all the reports I read and he is better than the player that left us

Will he get back to his best , maybe and I hope he does , just hopefully when he's not playing against us . We have a salary cap to deal with and yes I would say Watkins in is prime is better than Hurrell in his prime (yes I like Hurrell too) , but when Watkins left that wasn't the circumstances we had .

For what it's worth I think Thompson is a bit underrated. Saw him have some good games at prop at the back end of last season. Maybe his new "go faster" haircut will take him to the next level. It is worrying though. One more poorly prop and we are in the poop.

Let`s hope Tet has got his tackling technique sorted.

The tank doesn't seem that robust.

Unfortunate for Tommy, he always has an injury in him from what I can see. Hopefully he gets back by round 6/7 as Agar suggests.

I think a lot of it comes to where and how you use Tetevano. For me if you start prior and Mik with Smith at 13 then you can have a bench of Tetevano, Thompson, Dwyer and one other, possibly Mellor.

I think Tetevano for impact and Thompson for steady away is reasonable for interchange. Not perfect but could we worse.

The issue for me is when you start Prior, Mik and Tetevano. Then you have Thompson and you are playing around trying to keep people on the pitch. Two props start, two on the bench. Mellor covers the back row, Bentley can slip into 13 if Smith needs a rest.

Agree if we get another prop injury we will really struggle. Then again if any team lost 2 of the 5 front line props they would struggle. Salary cap means you don’t have as many players as you might like.

I'd say the trouble is that we only really have 4 front line props not 5.