Well Moss, Pryce and Chisholm, Howarth is certainly better than what we have had this season. Fingers crossed for Pryce too. Keyes, Charnock, O'brien and Lumb would provide competition too.

Ferguson, Clough, Addy, Clark would be big losses.

Not a fan of Stuart Howarth, he's a way to go before I'd have him here permanently.

I think he has better a passing game and better vision than O'B. For me that's more valuable than one that just picks the ball up and runs from dummy half.

I disagree. I think his distribution is far too slow, he has absolutely no pace and is nowhere near aggressive enough. One thing is for sure, Adam O Brien would have scored if it was him in Howarth's position in the first half (when Howarth defied the odds and managed to be held up by the Whitehaven defenders). A lack of aggression stopped Howarth getting on the scoresheet there imo, he just needed to get his head down and drive but he stayed too tall.

I think Rohan Smith might just tend to share Bulls4champs opinion .
He is starting with Howarth.
I also think he rates Charnock and will try to retain him

I think likewise for Odsal's other lost soul. I think James Mendeika would make a useful utility back for next season's - hopefully - trimmed down squad.

Any truth in the Beau Falloon rumours?

I don't think we'd miss him. He's too inconsistent, and his tackling is atrocious.

I'm not sure that's accurate. I think it's more that he wants to play two hookers, and Adam's skills are perfect for coming off the bench and terrorising a slightly tired defence. Mick Higham did it for years (coming off the bench), despite being one of the best hookers in the league.
I'm sure Smith would like a different sort of player to start the game at 9, with O'Brien then replacing him. It doesn't mean he rates one over the other, just that the interchange requires a slightly different skill set. I don't think Howarth is that man, but he's a better option than we currently have. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see another 9 brought in next season though, or if we keep Charnock, for him to be the starting hooker, with Pryce 6, Chisholm 7 and O'Brien off the bench.

I'd love for the club to sign Greg Minikin for that centre spot that everyone is talking about, although I think he's got another year at Cas. Very good all-round centre who has been excellent at Batley on Dual-reg, leading to Castleford calling him back to play for them. Another Cas player that's played a bit at Batley and would do a job in the Bulls squad is Frankie Mariano. If we're losing Ferguson and don't know what's happening with Pitts he'd be a good shout for the back-row IMO.

Both great players and both too good for this division unfortunately. Cas won't want to lose either player and if they did, it would be to another SL club.

Was having a mooch around on the other boards and was having a read on the Saints juniors news topic. They were discussing the latest batch of Juniors being signed up by various clubs.

Rogues Gallery (who is one of the most informed posters on junior rugby) was talking about our U16s player Cameron Scott being one of the most sought after players in the game at the moment. I knew he was a massive talent, and Rogues was saying every top club was trying to get his signature.

According to Bramley Dog on the Bullbuilder topic, Scott has signed for us which would be a HUGE signing for the club. Really hope this is true. For me the signing of our juniors is the biggest bit of business the club has to get right and sign them up. We've an excellent set of first years in the U19s who are currently 6th in the league. Sign the likes of Scott, Trueman, Brown etc up and we will return to SL in the long term. This is how we must go forward. Forget signing SL rejects.

Interestingly i noticed on twitter Ethan Ryan was attracting interest from a few SL clubs. but Ross seems to think he will sign with us shortly.

Usually when Ross says in the paper that he expects a player to sign a new contract, it seems to mean he already has but the club have told him not to put it out yet.

The tweets I've seen about Ethan Ryan seem to come from a League Express / Total RL article that says clubs are interested, but doesn't name any clubs or indicate any sort of story at all...

Can only assume that players leaving Leigh is now so frequent they don't bother speculating about it, so have moved onto Bradford!

And one glance at the TotalRL "journalist" (term used very loosely) offers no surprise. The bloke is stealing a wage.