A Walker/Ainscough combo?

tbh we went down that route with tupou and it was a disaster. big mistake imo signing anyone and then comparing them to a club legend. raises peoples expectations too much and they very quickly turn on player if they arent an instant success ( not that that was the problem in tupou's case, he was just a lazy sod).

Do think we need one key signing, not necessarily a marquee/big name one but someone we can build around. if it was a choice between a and a standoff I'd say go for the standoff every time. The lack of a proper standoff this year, combined with orford injury, has been our biggest problem this year. We need to have 2 dedicated halves before we start thinking about playing the likes of sykes,kearney etc out of position. either of them can do a job alongside a proper halve but they need to play alongside someon creative. in an ideal world we have orford and a.n.other as our starting halves and only play sykes/kearney in halves if we suffered an injury to one of our regular halves.

I really hope thats the reason we need menzies quota spot.

Vatuvei would score tries for fun over here! Bit unfair to compare him to Tame Tupou Mat!!

Unfortunately I think NZ Warriors would probably take a fair bit of convincing to let him leave! He's still fairly young though... so we can live in hope for the future!

I wasnt comparing him to tupou. I was making a more general point that i feel its a mistake to bring in a player and hype him up as the next (insert club legends name here) as it puts unfair pressure on the incoming player. We went down this route with tupou and imo it played a part in his fall from grace.

I know my comment was meant in jest to be honest Mat! I don't think many sensible level headed fans expected Tame to bet the next Lesley anyway.

I'd like to see Vatuvai on one wing, with Tony Williams on the other.

But I'll settle for Sheriffe and Reardon.

I don't know about that.

His debut in the Challenge Cup Quarter Final at Odsal against Huddersfield, he scored two good tries.

If we're going to give a young winger with only a few games under his belt a shirt, why not just let Finigan have it??

If we brought in a top quality winger then fair enough, but I don't see the benefit of pushing Finigan further away from a starting spot by bringing another young winger in.

your making an assumption there that this would prevent finigan being other winger. until we see full picture of whos coming and whos going we cant really say whether any particular signing is good or bad.
a lot of the talk about meli for instance has him playing at . so we could find ourselves in position of having finigan,halley and ainscough competing for the 2 wing spots which seems a fairly resonable position to be in to me.

I like what I've seen of finigan so far but I wouldnt like to go into next season with him guaranteed a starting wing spot. If he can continue to develop and keep the shirt then fair enough but we need to have other wing options on the books too.

I suppose that is fair comment, but i'd rather use Sykes as a centre over Meli and put Meli on the wing.

Or tbh, i'd consider keeping Sheriffe over Ainscough, although Ainscough is younger.

Halley Platt Sykes Meli
Ainscough Meli Platt Halley

The top one looks stronger to me.

tbh I tend to prefer the 2nd option. you must have a short memory to forget how poor sykes was at last time we played him their. tbh I suspect platt may struggle to keep his spot too, which is a bit unfair on him after way he's knuckled down this year, if rumours about walker have any legs. sykes and platt for me are ideal examples of utility backs. both able to cover a few positions and not ridiculously expensive.maybe not quite good enough to hold down a starting spot in a fully fit squad but there to give us squad depth we've so sadly lacked this year. Suspect sheriffe will be leaving and halley is only safe because hes still under contract.

It would be criminal not to give Platt a centre spot next season imo.


Sykes played well at 3 for a few games early this season, and if he can get a prolonged run in the centres he may improve (I know, he'll have to work on his defence) and could be a better option than Meli.

I'm not sure how good of an idea Walker's signing would be - yes he can be a good player, but he's coming back from an injury and I think we've had enough risk signings. Reardon's never come back to his best, and Kearney has been good but has still missed a fair few matches.