At 20 years old he still tackles harder and better than most of our team. He is a loose forward not a prop. I don't want another Jamie Langley 13.

The guy made is debut at 17, 2010 at 18 he started looking strong then got an awful injury. 2011 at 19 he missed half of the season still recovering from a serious injury, didn't get a decent run of games and couldn't quite get up to speed following his injury. Early 2012, he looked good.

How anyone can say hes not shown enough potential from the run he has had is just ludicrous. The same posters saying this will be moaning about letting Wardle, Atkins, Patrick etc go. Jamie Peacock didn't make his debut until he was 21.

I like what I've seen of Donaldson so far, he's a desrtuctive tackler and has an awareness of the game going on around him.
Decent speed, good hands and a great work ethic
All well and modest, but there's a bit of fire about the guy that could take him to the top of SL within 3/4 years of experience and physical strength on his back - and he'll only be mid 20s by then.
"outstanding" young prospects come and go but in my humble opinion this guy is the real deal.

I think he's a really good player but sadly appears to have glass knees. Knee injuries are the worst for players - the knee is so complicated anatomically and very likely to keep giving way once the rot has set in.

I feel for the lad.

He's smaller than Sinfied at the moment, I can't see him getting taller, which means he is not big enough, unless he models himself on Anthony Watmough I suppose.

Depends how you look at it.

in modern day science, when a player goes through a knee reconstruction, some doctors state the new ligament graft could be classed stronger than the one that was there before.

Some players have been to have 2 ligament grafts placed in the knee instead of the 1 that ruptured.

I think the stats state that 1 in 10 patients reject the replacement graft, in this case the athlete may be forced to retire.

As this is the second knee that James needs constructing, lets hope his knees are now better equipped for the rigours of SL.

I don't think he'll be better equipped. Sportsmen like rugby players and footballers are prime candidates for knee ligament injury simply due to the extreme stresses and pivoting movements they regularly undergo. It doesn't much matter though, because now that he has had an ACL go in both knees, the problem for him is that once injured, there are quite high risks of re-occurrence and other problems, especially in the medium term. It's a misconception that an ACL injury is just like snapping a piece of string, but usually other tissue is involved. (Most have injuries to the meniscus and bruising to the bone as well)

While modern medical and surgical techniques are fantastic, I think an athlete who chooses to play on after an ACL reconstruction is both brave and (understandably) often looking mainly at the short term , just wanting to get back to what they know despite the risks of storing up future problems. It would be reasonable to expect that a leg with all these injured and repaired bits and pieces must be more prone to future injury than an intact leg, and such studies as there have been of ACL in sportsmen suggest that their playing career is often significantly shortened.

His knees may, and hopefully will, get back to something like and he will hopefully go on to be something like his best, but he should have our extreme admiration, as first it takes some doing to rehab after such an injury, and second he will know the risks and what future problems he may be storing up, yet will choose to play rugby for us despite all that.

This is the biggest danger, IMO. Having gone through it, you seem to pick up muscular injuries when attempting to come back. Everyone puts a 6 month turnaround on this injury, but in reality it's more like 9 months as almost everyone has set backs in their rehab.

Once an individual has gone through this surgery, you don't often hear of them needing the same knee done (Gasnier comes to mind). Look at Donno, its the other knee which has given way, meaning he may have had poor/weak ligaments for the job he has to carry out.

Lets hope the lad has some good fortune over the next few years. Then again 'Luck' and 'Bulls' is never something you see in the same sentence! lol

Bulls? Luck? Bull? Lucks? Something is on the tip of my tongue but i can't quite get it.

Choose to play for us? What planet are you on F.A, the only people they do it for are themselves, to earn a wage and for their own enjoyment.

Certainley not for us.