I’m no elite athlete but had plenty of hamstring and calf tears and I’m just prone to them - could be Newman’s physiology or just accumulation of scar tissue. He limps almost every game.



Hopefully whatever he picked up yesterday is minor and he’ll be able to have a good off season. Think Holroyd needs one too.

I`m not sure that was the case with Walters.

He has been playing here a while now and I understand was settled.

I think at the time he was not getting in the team whereas others who were not performing were.

He wanted his future sorting early (Smith said as much) but Smith clearly wasn`t convinced he was good enough.

He got in the first team due to injuries and suspensions and the rest is history.

I also heard Sam wanted to play second row rather than prop, he’s much more likely to play that position at Wigan, Smith saw him as a prop - FWIW he is a better prop than second rower imo.

Fair enough but I can’t believe Wigan have offered him less money than Leeds…



Good luck to the lad, will definitely be spicy next time he plays Leeds. Holroyd will be after him all game for one.



Walters has a bit of attitude but he could be an outstanding player. Let’s hope we have one or two more outstanding props in development.

Yeh, sorry to say that it looks like we've messed up with Walters.

He's gonna be a very good player.

For whatever reason we've let him slip through the net.



Regarding Newman, it's a very big year for him next year.

Injury free and playing well and he will earn an upgraded contract, or potentially a move to Saints/Wire/Wigan or the NRL.

Injury blighted season again and I can't see us renewing his contract and other clubs will be put off.

Interesting one.

We have messed up with Walters, no two ways about it, theres a dearth of big, talented British forwards and we've lost one to a rival whilst spending a pretty sum on a load of Midgets...Donaldson, Goudemond, Bentley.



Dont mean to turn the positive result into a negative thread, but it is what it is, plenty of fans could see the potential even before he started Playing regularly, the club should of been able to.

The club did want to keep him and offered him a decent contract. He just chose to go to Wigan, it happens.

Obviously didnt offer a package good enough did we, aswel as not putting enough faith in him until our hand was forced.



We messed up, like you say, it happens

If he wants to play back row and we see him as a prop (imo I think he’s a better prop) it might not have mattered what we offered compared to Wigan. Particularly when he looks at how they use KPP and his game is very similar and there’s a spot to slot straight in there.



Clearly we did offer and want to keep him. But if he wants to be a back row I can understand why he’d see Wigan as the more attractive offer of money etc is all roughly equal.

Because who wants a 6ft 6, athletic, try scoring, backrow, who runs good lines, can offload, got some attitude and has loads more physical potential to come.



Yep, makes sense now, we dont need one of them

I’m not sure anyone’s said that, just that he’s performed better at prop than in the back row for us.

For me part of the issue is allowing an ex-England academy international player with loads of promise to get into the last year of contract. I would have minded a little less had Wigan had to pay £100k for him but as it is this is a limp exit. He hasn’t really contributed meaningfully to first grade yet but we’ve put 4 years of development into him.



It does look to me like the player wanted to go anyway, players are not in the club’s control. It is going to cost us a fortune to replace Walters though and I have to wonder whether we could and should have done more.



To be fair he didn’t really show as much promise until he had a run of first grade games at prop so some of this is benefit of hindsight.