It's not a bad signing. Meh.

He will fill Eastwoods role as a strike force second rower, and he will also cover and replace Ali.

He's a handful, he's ok and he's of the right age.

Not the type of player that will get more through the gates mind, something Hethrington will need to look at will gate figures dropping.

Same sort of thing happened to yours when you signed Hoffman, Lima and Finch?

Hmmmm.

You got some overseas players just signed up (Hoffman, Lima and Finch), recently you have had all the below in your squad:

Roberts/Carmont/Richards/Tommy L/Hansen/Phelps/Bailey/Fat Feka

i say no more

It adds to our depth, but doesn't make our best 17 any better

At least he might stay a bit longer than some of the others.

I don't think so.
Wigan have won the last three reserve grade / U20 grand finals, Leeds never got close.

They have also released four overseas players to make way for those three (all of whom have played International or S.O.O.)

Depends - has he been offered a one year contract extension yet?

So despite winning the last three grand finals at that level, you still couldn't find anyone in your academy to adequately replace Bailey, Riddell and Feka?

Poor showing that.

smith
ablett
hall
watkins
clarkson
mcshane
bjb
singleton
stewart
hood

its still working.

im more suprised with the talent pool wigan have. they needed to sign 3 imports and give carmont a new contract(dont you have 2 cracking young centres coming through) plus the other 3/4 you have? is that 7/8(not sure about phelps)! with the great acadamy at wigan i dont really get it. leeds on the other hand have 7 overseas players. the same or less than the pies.

4 overseas out 3 in. Seems like our chairman is trying to make steps in the right direction. How many teams starting the next season will have a space on the quota? I know we will and over the coming years i expect us to have more.

why arnt you using any of them? to be honest lima is rocks or diamonds, finch is a ham and eggs NRL half back good but not spectacular. not good enough the make the origin shirt his own. hoffman is as good as any backrower in the world so fair do's on that signing. but a new contract for carmont? with phelps roberts, richards, tommy,finch? cant you produce any backs?

Each to their own and all that....but I think he definitely strengthens our back row options and for me would be in our 1st choice 17 for next season.

Effectively (although I know not like for like position wise) we've replaced Diskin and Eastwood with Cross and Hauraki which IMO makes our pack 'look' stronger/better balanced for next season.

The two hooker thing never worked and although it wasn't his fault, Diskin was wasted as a sub whereas now we can go back to having another prop/impact forward on he bench which IMO will serve us much better than having Disko on the bench.

Whilst Eastwood when fit looked the business, especially as an impact prop with an offload game to boot the fact is he didn't settle here.

In Hauraki we have someone of a similar age who will be hungry to impress as he wants to get into the full Kiwi squad as opposed to Eastwood whose main motivation in some of his early interviews seemed to be about ££££ and given he's already had a season in the UK then hopefully he/his family are settled so we'll get full use out of him.

Hauraki is clearly not a 'big name' signing but who says your overseas players have to be. We've had plenty of 'lesser known' imports pre and post SL era who have given great service and proved to be effective signings.

'bigger names' might put bums on seats but they no doubt cost more and some have egos or off field problems to match.

Lets give this guy a chance I say

Hello mates

We alls very pleases here that Mr Sleeves has given the Weller chances with your marvellous clubs. He will do wells for yous.

I expect Hauraki to turn out to be a good signing for you. He's very hard working, an excellent defender and seems to be more of an attacking threat over here than he was in the NRL.

Do you know if any fee has been paid? I seem to recall him being under contract at Crusaders.

Rather ironic this pic.