I see what people are saying, should Ali go will we sign a marque player for the bums on seat notion. Lets not forget the money Buderus will free up, and according to some that means we'll have £10 million to play with.

Personally if we have to sign in a second rower I like the look of Ben Harrison at Warrington. As for Westerman, I reckon he could come good in a quality team. But at the moment he is Mr Castleford and will stay there rather than move on. Its a shame but it reminds me of Danny Orr. Wouldn't leave Cas and had the potential, and then left it too late and went downhill

would be a huge loss to the team. He's such a big player for us.

Not overly worried, the article is lacking any real detail

Danny left at the right age. Nothing wrong with how he went, it's injuries that have effected his career not ability. Had he not had the injuries he would be a regular at international and would probably have still been at Wigan.

FWIW If Westerman was offered the right deal from a top club and Cas were prepared to sell, the lad would go.

The right deal for him would probably be too much for any club IMO, he'll stay at cas.

Im still plugging for 'promote within', rather than buy. Thats if he leaves.

I'm not so sure he had the bottle for the big games, ok player but went missing far too much for my liking. I honestly don't think he would have made it at GB level with the players he had in front of him.

Moi Moi would be a great replacement, but I really can't see that happening.

If he's thinking of going he may as well go now.

Less is more Ken, Less is more.

If Ali goes he takes a little piece of my heart with him.

It won't be the same without that big, beautiful, dark smiling face.

I think I might have a man crush, or an all out raving homosexual fixation, on Ali.

From what I've seen of Eastwood he's very Ali-like.
I think we need an Ellis-like player if he goes.
There do seem to be mixed messages in the article. On the one hand Ali talks about going home, in the next breath he's doing his cramming to fulfil UK residency requirements.
I put it all down to newspaper talk.
It could become a self-fulfilling prophecy though since it's clear that GH will not conduct contact negotiations through the media.
At his age & considering his lack of impact this season maybe the club won't be offering him a contract at all or certainly not one on increased money.

I would offer Ali another year with an option for another after that. he will probably want 2 but the 1 year see how it goes has worked for a few others of the team

I think we should wait and see what GH is offering before we completely say our goodbyes to Ali.
Afterall how many have said it's Seniors last yr in the past only for him to re-sign with us.
If he decides it's time to go home i don't think we will "replace" him because he's that good imo a similar view i hold in Seniors case also.
I'm all for promotion from within if that player shows the potential and hunger so the natural choice would be Pitts imo plus we have Young Manning to return from his loan spell and further down the line i like the look of Bravo and Clarkson plus we will still have Ablett who is still only 24.

I'm all for promoting youngsters but I don't think we currently have anyone who can replace what Ali does for us. He has more than once won us the game because of his flair, and just letting a player like that go without a replacement would be a big mistake. We need these game breaking players in the squad.

The barge a[ir[/ise?

I've already said i don't we can "replace" him plus we have Beastwood who does a similar job in terms of off-loads,big hits and game-breaking plays.
It's still a big[size IF[/sizewhether he goes or not but players like Pitts and Manning if their development continues will deserve a 1st team chance imo plus the other youngsters like Watkins,Bjb and Mcshane will be looking to have decent contract upgrades when the next negotiations start if they've lived up to their potential.
I want him to stay but if he does decide the time is right to move on we do have the squad to cope and maybe spread his contract money around a bit more.