I agree. If he can steer the team around the field and is a good communicator within the team, I don't care whether he makes the odd slip when being interviewed. Good luck to the lad.

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid

Well it never did Jamie Peacock any harm did it?

Admittedly he became more articulate later in his career but during his Bradford days he sounded like a seal chewing on a penguin during his interviews.

Our own coach and club legend Mr J Lowes was hardly a mastermind contender either.

Therefore, no, I do not see it as being a high priority in RL to be able to quote the works of Kafka.

Isn't that a type of kebab?

Yeah I don't do culture.

Yeah, of course you do, everyone does culture, it is, after all, infinitely varied and the world is full of different cultures and sub-cultures, even within one society.

I do like kebabs though.

Some kebabs are best avoided. According to my man on the inside at Porton Down that goes for some cultures as well.

I see Jacks is going to arrive a full two weeks before the season starts due to him having to obtain a visa! Can't help but think an organizing s/h needs more time to get upto speed in a new competition, new country etc!!

With the new format as it is he has first 22 games to get up to speed for middle 8s.

To be fair, it's not just 2 weeks. He was here before Christmas too.

For no more than 2 weeks i would suggest

Yeah, agree with that.

I think his, 'incentive', is pretty much the fact that he's here on a trialist basis, so he clearly needs to show, maybe more than, 'a little promise'' to earn a full time deal. To be honest, I can't see any point in criticising the player for something he has little [in fact, I'd guess absolutely no] control over - unless we find out he only applied sometime after the new year party, of course.... The process takes until it's completed.

IIRC, Steve Ferres [?] was speaking about him showing up well in the friendlies, though it may well be that he misses the lot - though the club must surely have been savvy enough to recognise that possibility.

I think the best way to go, if he doesn't get cleared in time to play the friendlies, is to see how he goes in training and if he's looking good, give him a 12 month deal with an option for a 2nd 12 months based on performance. You've then, as others have said, got the whole of the regular season to see how he goes. Meaning we'll come up to the middle 8's knowing if he's the guy we need or if we need to draft in a replacement.

I suspect the word on trial is code for we will announce his contract when he gets a visa