Is my mind playing tricks on me, or did we try sign Paul Sironen

Remember it being all over sky sports news at the time, we had signed Victor Tordoff from ourselves (Dudley Hill) massive news at the time was being chased by everybody. Was told he would be moulded into our future 13 for years to come only to get offered a miserly full time contract he couldn't afford to accept. Fell out with the game after that, had every bit as much or a little more potential than John Bateman back in the day

We pulled out of the walker deal because Orford came available.

Not actually the case.

I was told the story of the Walker none-signing by Mr Duffy himself.

What happened was that Bradford were in talks with him to sign and had sent him an agreed upon contract for him to sign. This was returned with a number of amendments.
Also, while other Aussie signings were in almost daily contact with the club about their moves with regards to where are they going to live, which are the good schools for their kids to go to and the million and one other things that you need to consider if you're moving halfway around the world there was virtually no contact from Walker.
It was at this point, the club had a call from a couple of NRL clubs all asking the same questions ie "Are you signing Walker and do you know that his agent is hawking him around clubs" so it became clear that he was clearly trying to get an NRL deal but keep the Bradford offer as a backup.

So the club pulled their offer. I can't recall him really setting SL alight while at Catalan so I don't think it was much of a missed opportunity from Bradford's perspective

You've chased some rubbish that's for sure.

And signed some as well to be fair...