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.

Wouldn't be Mr Shaw by any chance? He's dropped another clanger in his article about first half score beating a record.



I know we had a good first half but it certainly took us longer than eleven minutes to get the 9 tries

Don't be surprised to hear news on various young players signing new deals soon.

Cameron Scott is still young enough to qualify for the under 16s so is still at least 5 years away from playing any first team rugby. If he's really that highly sought after, I'd say we have little to zero chance of hanging onto him long enough to ever see him make his first team debut.
I hope I'm wrong obviously, but it's the unfortunate truth thanks to where the club is these days.

5?

Jacob Trueman, Sam Burgess, John Bateman all made their debuts in their first year as an academy player at 17. Not saying Scott will do that but there's no way he still wont have made his debut at 20. If we sign him and other clubs want him, then they will have to pay for him.

I'd rather we sign Scott than yet another SL reject, play him for 4 games, then realise he's not good enough and ship him out on loan to Dewsbury while we still pay him a wage.

Great news. Maybe we've finally clicked in how do to recruitment. Or Smth has just taken over from ferres.

Well yeah, I mean those are special circumstances but I hope you're right and he has a long and successful Bulls career!

I've met the kid and without wanting to big him up too much, I'd say he is definitely capable of playing first team at 17, so in the next 12-18 months. Has made just as much impact as Bateman at amateur level. I refuse to compare him to Burgess though because that guy is different gravy!