Hood keeps going on about getting us back to the top, where we belong, but it aint going to happen with these signings. Look at Wigan, St.Helens and Leeds, they add real quality such as Perry, Shenton, Finch, Hoffmann ect to the quality young talent they have. The likes of Eastmond, Foster, Lomax, and the Tomkins brothers for example will thrive on playing with international players. We have real quality in Whitehead, Donaldson, Addy, Southernwood but playing alongside players like Sibbit, Raynor, Hall, Worrincy they wont learn nowt. Put Donaldson, Whitehead, Addy or Southernwood in any of Wigan, St.Helens or Leeds first team and you would see a massive difference.

whilst we know potter rated finigan enough to give him an extension, halleys here next year because macca gave him 2 yrs last season. for all we know halley may not feature in potters plans long term. got to say im not really convinced by halley on the wing where his main attribute was his pace which seemss to have lost this season. That said I'd be worried if we consider raynor as a first choice winger ahead of ainscough,halley and finigan (always assuming ah van is the other 1st choice). Dont think crookes comes into reckoning as to my mind hes a 1st who happens to be able to cover wing.

The thing is Wigan,St's & that other teams squads are good enough to not need a complete overhaul, therefore only needing to spend your available money on a few top quality player. We however do not have that luxury.

If Raynor is cheap then i don't have a problem with his signing as Ah Van & Ainscough are both gambles & Finnigan is a long way from the finished article.

Connor has confirmed that tomorrow's signing is a back, so it's looking odds on like Raynor.
The VT will have a field day when they hear about this one, and it's not an easy signing to defend either...

Quite, we can only sign what is available!

Maybe it's just me, but replacing Sheriffe and Reardon with Ah Van, Raynor & Ainscough seems like a pretty fair improvement. Or is that too positive a spin on it?

What iam saying is, we have some young players who could take us back to the top, with a little help from a few quality international players. Signing journeymen, and having a complete overhaul of the squad every season is no good. If there are no quality players available, then wait till one or more becomes available. It's pointless making signings just for the sake of it.

Paul has just sent me a message asking to add that it's a 1 year contract too (which Connor Murphy has also said about tomorrow's signing on his Twitter).

I don't know. It's making me think about changing my allegiance.

when you put it in isolation like that it sounds fine. put into the greater context where we have halley,finigan and at a stretch crookes able to play wing as well and a massive glaring hole in the squad in the shape of the halves ( or more to the point lack of) then you can see the problem. We have much better squad depth right across the squad excpet for in the 2 most important pivotal positions where we arent even sure who are 1st choice starters are going to be. I just hope the board and potter know what they are doing and we have a signing or two still to announce, or all the squad depth in the world isnt going to help us improve next year.

It's ok having a big squad, but only 17 can play at a time..........

You'd think that to some degree, the exposure the youngsters got this season would mean they'd be in a better position to get more game time next year and be more capable at coping with it. All these "average" we're signing are going to stop the development of the Finigans / Donaldson's of our club.

I'm not denying that some of the players we are signing may turn out good for the club, but at the minute we're looking like signing moe than we're letting go and hence stuttering the development of the youngsters.