More likely to retire I've heard struggling with shoulder.

With the greatest respect to him, I'd take that too. Wish him all the best for his future and thank him for his efforts (I wouldn't ever question his effort to be honest), but I don't think he's up to playing even at our level any more.

Agree with HamsterChops about Blythe. On Sunday he was showing the kind of energy that we need to see from the rest of the team. He can be a headless chicken but sometimes enthusiasm is infectious and he can be a positive influence in that way. If he's cheap I'd keep him.

Purtell is a steady experienced pro but I do wonder if he's still got the fitness and durability to keep going. If we do lose him we really could do with some sort of reliable old head to take his place.

Reliable old heads are something we've been lacking for the past two years, our last proper one was probably Diskin. I don't think Pryce is a particularly good leader, but he has been there and done it and we could do with at least one other person in the squad with that experience especially as with how young the squad looks.

I wouldn't object to Blythe staying as a second row, but as a centre he's both ineffective himself and also cuts his winger out of the game by not giving him any decent ball. His enthusiasm is first class but his game has gone backwards, imo.

He was a good centre when he came to us from Wire. But then we played him at 2nd row for half a season & he wasn't powerful enough. But since then he hasn't been a great centre any more. I'm not sure what happened that season but we seemed to have broken him....

Perhaps a preseason with Rohan may find his mojo!

To be right he'd also played at SR at Wire too and whilst it's true he came, principally to play centre, he was already a utility when he arrived.

You're correct though, he was a decent centre when he first came over on loan, but for some reason he's fallen back imo.

My main issue with Blythe is his propensity to step out of the defensive line for a big hit, and invariably miss it.

He hits about 10% of them. And the other 90% of the time leaves a gaping hole in the line.

It's a shame you can't put his effort into someone with more ability.

Agreed.

I have no confidence in his fringe defence. It's worse than when we had Sykes and Platt in the centres.