Do we play this game again? Okay...

Tasi - Masoe : I'll take your laughter in the Tasi thread as you agree this is at least on par, if not an improvement...

Peyroux - Jones : a lot has been said about Peyroux and his lack of game time, but he has consistently been in international setups (I mean there's a whole argument to be had about him switching international teams but that's for another day), so the question is, do you think Jones would have gotten into any of those international set ups? If the answers no, we may well have ourselves an improvement

Fages - Hohaia : Hohaia has my total support, and it's a great shame he had to bow out in the way he did ... But his impact on the team last year in the time he did play was (understandably) lacking, so any contribution made by Fages next year is an improvement

SMD - Wellens : this is the hardest one for me, and if have no problem people telling me this is a loss to the squad. But the Hohaia argument is applicable here too...

Charnock - Walker : one youngster out, another in. The fact Walker couldn't hold down a permanent spot in the Wakefield team says it all (even though I hope in time hell fulfil some of his early promise). Charnock into the 25 and covers the spine and in particular Roby where we're very short.

Davies/ Knowles - Hand : see above, like for like, hopefully one of them can seize their opportunities

Owens - flanagan : quite different so hard to compare, but Flash was the definition of bland for me and a real bugbear of mine last year, and Owens pushes Dawson down the pecking order (regardless of whether your in the "he's average" or "he has potential" camp) so that's win win for me!

Then you get into the fact our halfbacks will actually have a preseason together, the kids will be looking to get over their sophomore slump etc...

How that isn't a net improvement to the squad is beyond me ...

Come on mate you can't seriously think Hull look stronger? This is a team who have lost 2 of their better players let's not forget.

I get people being underwhelmed with our signings but it's getting a bit over the top now to say Hull look stronger.

I think we're looking okay for next year. We've not signed any headline players - everyone knows that - but the recruitment strategy seems to be based on depth rather than getting a big name. I certainly don't think we're any weaker than we were last year, when we had two prominent squad members who were done after a few weeks.

Looking at our main competitors, I don't see anyone pulling out ahead. Wire have signed some big-ish names, but I'm still not convinced they've sorted out their problems at half back. I'll be amazed if Leeds are nearly as good with the leaders they've lost. Hudds seem pretty static. Hull and Catalans have made some impressive signings but a lot needs to change before either of them are serious title threats. Wigan will be strong if they can get Tomkins on the field.

All in all, I think we've got a squad that's better equipped for the grind of the season. Whether we've got the standout quality to bring home the bacon in the very big games, I'm not so sure.

That's a good summary, but I'd take it a step further as I'm dramatic like that. We need a star player, someone we can look to when it's going against us versus the big teams. Someone the opposition fears. We simply don't have that at the moment.

I think this is the strategy for next season, balance in depth. Jack Owens should be an improvement on Dawson in the single fact he can cover fullback/wing positions. These days its very difficult to keep your first 17 players for an extensive period of games, we can more or less assure that we are going to have an injury crisis next season when this occurs our recruitment might not mean a lot of disruption of players playing out of position.
My biggest worry is what KC is going to do with Turner and Burns will they be considered for a settled position and what will that be.

I agree. That may well come in 2017, when we have some big earners coming off contract, but I don't expect anything of that nature for 2016.

Didn't we say the same thing last season knowing Wello, Hohaia, Flanagan, Masoe & Jones were off contract? Mose & Lance were reportedly huge earners. There's always gonna be players off contract wanting improved deals, Savelio will only have a year left next year again for example. A centre & prop were vital for this season IMO, no idea how hard we tried to push the likes of Burns, Dawson, Turner etc towards new clubs but IMO we needed a centre more than another wing/FB. Both Tommy Mak & Swift are capable of covering SMD & Lomax at full back but we need a quality centre partner for Percy badly, an injection of pace/strike could have taken us a long way.

Nice to see the panic has set in.

How far were we off top spot this year?

I'd expect nothing more from the sad one, but others tend to have more sense.


But I'd be happy to lay a fiver on us being in the top 6 if anyone is seriously considering us being outside that group.

Why top 6? We scraped into the top 4 this season and the clubs below us have definitely made moves to improve their squads. Why is it such an unthinkable notion that we might struggle?

We finished 10 points above 6th place Wire last year.

We didn't scrape into the top 4 though, we dropped down into 4th place after 2 losses targeting top spot. For accuracy I would say we struggled at the latter end to try and get 1st place and ended up the 3rd best team for super league wins.

Losing Wilkin to injury really scuppered us. We were challenging for top spot before that happened, despite playing some god awful rugby.

Given that we have lost Josh Jones to Union and JT is being moved into the pack maybe KC is looking to give Matty Dawson an extended run at centre, his preferred position.

Matty has had to cover on the wing a number of times with mixed results, signing Owens means we have a winger to cover/interchange with Swift and Tommy freeing Dawson of his utility back role. I doubt that Dominique Peyroux has been signed as a first choice centre, he is likely to play in the back row, so the only other man in the squad that fits the bill is Matty.

If we're going into the 2016 season with Matt Dawson as our first choice centre then we're in a much worse position than I thought.

This makes no sense whatsoever, with all due respect.

Why would we move Turner from centre to back row, as well as playing Peyroux in the backrow, to go alongside Wilkin, Greenwood, Vea and LMS and then leave ourselves with one proper centre in Percival and a dud in Dawson? There's no balance there; 6 backrowers and 2 (at a push) centres.

There is no chance he will play Dawson at centre and then leave one of the above mentioned players out of the 17. That would be bordering on madness.