we have 6 overseas spots next year. upto 5 of those can be full quota players with any spots left over being used by non fed trained players. so if we only had 3 full quota players we could have 3 non fed trained, 4 full quota 2 non fed trained etc.

menzies,hall, l'estrange,kearney and orford are full quota
nero is non fed trained.

walker would require a full quota spot so losing nero wouldnt allow us sign him.

the only leeway is that if a player was playing in superleague before feb 2008 when the new quota rules came in then, the next contract they sign they become federation trained. So the next time nero signs a new deal for anyone he no longer counts on the overseas quota at all. This is why we could have retained semi and how leeds keep lauititi, wigan richards etc.

potentially we could (with the RFL agreement) end neros contract by mutual consent and imediately re-sign him thus getting him the federation trained status a year early. But this would only help us sign walker if one of the full quota players could transfer across to the non-fed trained category. The only possibility for this is l'estrange afaik. He has french ancestry but he tried to get counted as a kolpak for the last world cup and failed ( I believe his great grandparent is french when it needs to be his grandparent) so i think this is a non-starter.

I think we maybe in a situation where we've verbally agreed a deal with walker conditional on him getting a visa and given him paperwork to allow him to apply for a visa. whilst this process was ongoing orford became available and we signed him meaning we're no longer in a position to sign walker. I suspect his manager is making noises prior to walker attempting to do us for breach of contract. could potentially be shaky legal ground for us.

So lets offer him a new deal. Or would that be looked upon as a contract extension rather than a new contract?

think in the case of an extension he would only come off the overseas once the original part of the contract had expired although I stand to be corrected. imo this is the grey area where we may have a bit of leeway.

Well mutual termination and then new contract me thinks. But would Walker really improve us that much?

your missing the point. even if we did that we still couldnt sign walker unless we could get one of the full quota players reclassified as non-fed trained. thats why I did the long post to try and explain it to you

Finally had chance to replace Deacs with Orford.

List now up to date, but does anyone have definate news on Straughier yet?

I'd guess he is staying with the club given he wasn't removed from the squad details on the Bulls site when they removed last season's leavers

No squad number ......

i'd hazard a guess we're going to send him on a season long loan, maybe as part of new arrangement with rochdale.

But he is still shown as a palayer on the club's website. Even after last season's clear out and this seasons new additions

Squad Numbers added

Duane has agreed a new 1 yr deal, not everything been finalised yet tho, him vinny and johnny are gonna be playing in u20s next season, hes playing at cas on boxing day to see how hes going in pre season, he tried in a lot of games for reserves last season but got frustrated alot it seemed to me, had a good link up with vinny tho and they got some tries down that side.

Is Jonny Horton still at the club then? Coz I had to think he must have been a bit miffed at this O'Brien lad getting in the first team squad ahead of him, especially when Horton won the Reserves Player of the Year last season didn't he?

Yes horton still there, hes gonna be in u20 squad next season.