Just as importantly, Holbrook says Wilkin will only have limited gametime this coming season.

good news indeed, Wilkin has given his everything but he should have been a utility 2 years ago, the only problem with Roby being captain is that for 20 mins he will be off the pitch, I expect they will switch roby/wilkin on off then?

Great news for the rest of SL, means that we wont have to spend time watching Wilkin whining and crying to the ref every 2 minutes.

My reading of what Holbrook said wasn't that Wilkin won't be in the 17, but that he will be on the sub's bench a lot more, rather than playing the full 80 minutes.

I'm a Wilkin fan, but I do accept that his time is drawing to a close. He's been a superb servant to the club, and although he was perhaps most effective in his early years as a second-row, I think the important contribution he made as a tactical kicker and ball handler, when we've had no other options, is too often underestimated by fans.

With our current relative wealth of halfback talent, there's no place left for him there now, and second-row is a job for a bigger, faster and younger man now.

Chris Joynt Mk II ???

Quiet and unassuming on and off the pitch, just lets his rugby do the talking.

To be fair he does seem to have come out of his shell a bit. In the build up to the world cup he was in the media a fair bit and came across very well, I thought. He did an interview with Jamie Jones-Buchanan in which he talked about having made a conscious effort to be vocal now that he is one of the senior members of the squad.