Well Wakey must be aspiring to match our levels of fitness then!

Hope we're planning to fill these new vacancies.

Beattie has been moved back to purely u18’s coach. Jason Hirst? Is Youth & Academy director.

Since Hirst was appointed earlier this year, it always looked like his and Beatties roles overlapped, so maybe not a huge surprise. Leigh Beatties strength was always in coaching. Not sure how comfortable he was with the politics involved in being Head of Youth. Hopefully this arrangement will suit both of them.

Doesn't look like Hampshire coming. https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... dium=email

Doesn't look like Hampshire coming. https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... dium=email

To be right, Leigh never looked really comfortable with the 'public' side of coaching when he was "acting head coach" a few years back. I think you are correct; he's doing what he likes best and what he's very good at.

He's still good enough for SL IMO but his options look limited. Wouldn't surprise me if he ends up somewhere like Toulouse or Salford on a 1 year deal though.

It sounds like we were definitely in for him though and with us reportedly missing out on Joe Wardle as well, it sounds like we've a decent chunk of cash left to spend on a "big" signing. Just need to be patient and be there at the right time like with Ben Evans.

Yeah not really a surprise to lose out on Hampshire. We remain a little thin at halfback with Lilley and Patton being obvious first choice and Jowitt as backup.

I'm not worried about signings right now

It's not how you start, it's how you finish- or as we found out last season, how you DON'T finish.

Players WILL become available during the season. Do you think Hampshire is just going to sit on his butt all next season? No, if he doesn't get signed by Salford or Toulouse he'll take a one-year deal with a Championship club. And if we've blown all our budget we won't be there when his agent is touting him around.

And there'll be plenty of others, some from Australia. It's a World Cup year - so a lot of players will be wanting game time. There might well be players who need game time to prepare who are needing a club for 4 or 6 months.

What we've got now is decent enough to compete, and get into the Top 6. That's all that matters, really. We won't be able to compete with Featherstone or Leigh anyway in the season proper. So why blow all our money going for third? Take it steady, get into the six, and hopefully add some real quality for the bit that actually matters, the play offs.

I totally get that but part of me worries what happens if we lose either of our two first choice halfbacks long term early in the season. Top 6 looks more of a struggle then. You can't cover those positions like you can most others.

Hampshire has SL ambition and good luck to the lad. However just a moment spent imagining him in our squad highlights a vulnerability. I think competing for 6th is abject failure. Similarly running a reserves while competing for 6th is not the correct priority.

We're on a cusp, a couple of injuries we're mid table, but 3 good signings and we're from competing for top 2. If rumour is to be believed and we're trying to sign Hampshire and an edge forward like Wardle - then we're on the right lines at least. We're not a million miles away.

The club have announced the signing of Charlie Harris, a young half back, from Castleford.

He has signed to play for the Reserve team in 2022, gives the club chance to look at him for a future first team spot.

Still gives us a third half back option and if race has signed that will make 4 so at least it’s cover

Whatever happened to that Greenwood chap that everyone seemed to have wanted around when Kear got the job?