If you were a regular part of a decent warrington team who had just massively upped their grand final hopes by bringing in george williams, what do you think it would take for you to switch sides mid-/late- season to move to leeds? Rather than try win a GF before moving to leeds to win another one next season?

Personally, I quite like our GF hopes if we sign Austin and have some luck with injuries (we def. need two functional half backs and we only have one), but I'm not sure if he'll see our chances as better than warrington's....

I personally think there is a big chance that Austin comes in within the next couple of weeks and Lui decides to go home early. Tying in with Widdop getting fit for Warrington.

I think until Widdop is fit, Austin won't be with Leeds.

I honestly don't get the Austin thing. Where does he fit into the side? Would one of Gale, Sezer or Austin be happy being second choice and in the squad purely as backup? Or is the intention for one of them to play full back or something? And if so, where does that leave Myler and Walker?

The club obviously have a plan for him and he will be fully aware of that. If he’s happy to sign up with that plan then they’ll be no issue.

Again I can only see sense in this if they expect to partner Sezer with Austin in the halves.

We have better wingers than Austin, stacks of depth at centre and two good fullbacks assuming Walker really can get fit.

You could take the view that to maintain a push for a title, you need 2 good half backs on the field in as many games as possible, and so allowing for inevitable injuries/suspensions having 3 makes a kind of sense... but as mentioned above I would be really surprised if any of these 3 would be happy with a reserve tag.

Comes down to cost doesn't it - how much is Austin willing to come across for given his situation at Wire, and would he prefer to come to a club with a genuine shout at the title next season..?

I can see some sense in it but it's a shame we don't have academy players good enough to step up to cover when needed - and from what I've seen we are a little way off having that luxury.

How many teams this year have had their first choice halfback pairings in the starting team for a consistent period of time? Id say not many, having three top line halfbacks in a squad is not a bad way to run a squad IMO, Austin will be fully aware what he is being signed to do, he can play full back, centre, halfback, loose forward and if you're Wayne Bennet on the wing aswell.

I'm sure the selling point is that he can earn a contract for 20223 and beyond as I can't see gale staying past next year.

Would I be signing him on marquee status? absolutely not, is he a good addition to the squad if he's on a sensible wage, absolutely, the only sticking point is he is taking an OS spot, but at least one of Martin, King or Hurrell will be going anyway.

Spot on

Look at it this way. At the start of the season, our specialist fullbacks and halves were Walker/Myler (fullback) and Gale, Lui and McLelland (halves). Now consider how many games those players have actually been fit to take part in. Our first choice option of Myler, Lui and Gale have not yet taken the field after 16 league matches. The club clearly don't want to countenance that happening again, hence the decision to add both depth and quality in the form of Sezer and Austin. Real competition for places will drive the standards up to.

Every time I see Austin and wing mentioned in the same post (even tongue in cheek) I recoil.

So does he.