Ref: B Thaler. Touch J: J Child, P Brooke. In Goal: C Dean, M Hawkes.

Are you prepared to take a few defeats and potentially missing out on the top four to accommodate these younger players? If you are, then I'd suggest you'd be in the minority who won't be howling for Brian McDermott's head if the team finishes sixth again.

It's very rare in sport that blooding young players leads to an improvement in performance. There's normally a dip in performance and results before it starts to pay off.

You could counter that by saying not giving them the time will only come as a problem at a future time anyway.

isnt that the case for most of the players?

I thought id read that Joel Moon wouldn't be fit for the start of the season?

He's already made an appearance in the warm up games mate.

Well this is what the result of moving on Kirke, Bailey, Clarkson and BJB* will be. Yes when fit then the starting lineup will look quite similar to the one which played the CC Semi & Final, however unless we're incredibly lucky with injuries this year then the young guys will get a decent amount of game time because they aren't waiting behind those names that I just mentioned. Previous few years the likes of Walters, Mulhern, Minchella, Foster etc. have gotten games due to us missing upwards of 7/8 first teamers......now just 2/3 injuries and they're in and you're going to have a lot of weeks where you're missing 2/3 guys at least.

*granted that was more a case we couldn't convince him to stay just to be a backup.

Sutcliffe at 6, Stevie Ward at Loose.

When you look at the injuries the likes of Mags ,Sinfield and Ward etc have overcome earlier in their careers obviously not but when you are on yer last knockings it can end all of a sudden ala Senior which is my point.

We've done it before AG and if GH comes clean and stops this PR bollox about this being our greatest squad ever it shouldn't imo be hard for fans to accept.
The reality is clear this "Golden Generation" can't keep going forever and it's blatantly obvious even now they are on the way down performance wise so the sooner we start the process the quicker the next batch will be up to speed imo.

Wouldn't argue about accelerating that process (realistically it has already started) providing the youngsters are truly ready. WRT the fans, I think that on the whole the perception of failure lasting more than half a season will be that the older players are no longer up to it, the younger players aren't a patch on what the older players once were and that we should be throwing mega bucks at signing Australian superstars. There will be some such as yourself who take a more measured view but come on, we're talking rugby league fans here

Well, the phasing out of the old guard will begin this year with JP finishing and in all probability Kylie. A few others too are only one more bad injury away from being pushed too like Senior was so we truly are in the transition now and the starting 13 in a couple of years will likely look a hell of a lot different to the one which picked up the Challenge Cup in August. The younger guys should get plenty of chance this year and im sure we would all certainly agree that has to be a good thing. We will find out who is truly up to the task and hopefully a few will be able to stake a claim.

I don't think we should be throwing silly money at any top NRL player but do think it is high time GH gave the fans a big name to get excited about for next year. Its probably half a dozen years now since our last marquee player in Buderus came over and the signings have been pretty meh since.Interesting times ahead.