Jack needs to go out on loan for a season, the academy/reserve grade is pretty poor in this country.. he needs to play against full grown men and play most weeks.

YEP reporting that recruitment is done, with Blease saying they might go for more signings if the right people become available.

10 players out, only 5 in - surely we will look to boost the squad mid-season? Although of course if the quality is better overall it can only be a good thing.

We clearly have a little bit of room on the cap, but maybe not the player to spend it on. Maybe best to keep our powder dry and watch the situation at other clubs. I do worry that we are staking a lot on Holroyd and Gannon returning. If not, the pack still looks thin in terms of numbers.

Yeah agree and thats why it will likely leave us short of the top teams. Blease did say a few weeks back it might be another year before we're somewhere near where he wants us to be squad wise. As long as i see good progress this year and get in the playoffs that will be fine for me (how far we have fallen).

We need to start heading in the right direction this year and show clear intent (the offseason so far has largely been very positive in that regard). Though i'd be interested to see how the season ticket sales are going and if recent years failures have impacted..

On the pack, only two new signings are actually forwards, although two of the backs might be better at moving the ball in a yardage sense.

Nothing wrong with a smaller better quality squad until injuries/suspensions bite and we have to play the kids.
I think we are still a couple of signings short.

There's been two major problems in the last 2 years. 1 has been too many signings who were part of the squad, but would not likely be pushing for a starting spot (Roberts, Ruan, Warren, Olpherts etc.). It's created imbalance in the squad where there's too much quantity, not enough quality.

The second has been tactical, and the passive defence that has been discussed to death. The thought of Hall and Sivo bringing the ball back in place of Edgell and Lumb (though both did well for their age/size), coupled with a more aggressive defensive line will massively reduce the workload for our front row.

Our front row bar Oledski didn't do much work that was part of the problem. Agree completely about the yardage in backfield but I would be hoping for increased workload from our front considering in some cases you were lucky to get 15 minutes out of them!

I think Oledski abd Palasia starting with Lisone/ Holroyd / Jenkins on bench will give us a much better all round pack.

The FB and wings all have good go forward early sets and a fit Newman with Handley will help too.

I still think the back row is missing a hard runner but if Gannon has bulked up and health sticks that could be big for us.

We'll have to agree to disagree. The end of the season is when we lost Handley and Miller (and of course Fus for the last game) in the backfield, and where we missed their yardage carries. For that reason, I don't think we saw benefit in the forward pack that we could have if they had all been fit.

The big question for the forwards next year is how Gannon and Holroyd go. I think Holroyd was trying too hard early in the season when he did play. Maybe putting him on the bench will allow him to go back to basics. As I understand the new salary cap rules, if neither end up playing, we may get some relief to look for new signings?

Spot on.
A fit Gannon and Holroyd is like two new signings and the pack looks decent.
If they're both out injured again, we look light.

If you read what the Eels fans say about Siva , he won’t be making much yardage in our half . 10 yards to the try line great , as a workhorse like Ash no .
Massively happy to see Holroyd back , hopefully he hasn’t lost any more weight as I think he got to light last year .

Yeah i'm not sure he's a Marcus Bai in that regard but BA will know better than anyone how to get the best out of him.

He will make more than fusi just through playing more than 12 games and that's enough for me.

If we can utilise him correctly and he can score like he did in NRL we will alot more of those games we lost by 2-8 points

Interesting how the NRL are now considering giving 7 tackles to the defending team following the kick off if the ball is kicked past the 25 metre line.
This they say will result in shorter kick offs and will eliminate the first carry and collision.
Just shows how Rohan Smith was ahead of his time!