Yeah I noticed that Sheffield had signed him. It was just after the world cup when we were linked with him I think. There might even have been some newspaper articles about it so it was more than just rumour. I seem to recall Mark having some visa issues though, and in the end he joined a PNG club.
Should be interesting to see how both he and Offerdahl go next season.

It was indeed just after the world cup. When the likes of Gaz Carvell had left us in the lurch (with arguably good reason) and we had about 1 and a half props, so we were desperate for recruits.

Mexico is a good strong runner. Not sure about the rest of his game.

One things for sure. He'd make more of an impact than our current overseas bench prop.

The PA bloke doing the "We Will Rock You" during the game makes more impact than him.

I am reasonably happy with our signings this season. We look to have ditched the idea of taking risks on unseen players and have signed players from here who we know which makes sense. Some of those forwards I believe could be good signings. A couple of props from this season may feel the pressure if they don't lift their game.
My gut feeling for FB is that Campbell was signed for that position before wing. Agree with above about having too many players who "may" turn out to be this or that. We need more players who are clearly good enough quality for a particular position. More specialists rather than utility players. A few utility players are needed but not 15 of them.

The main stumbling block to the pre season rush to mop up all the good or available players is the "what if Factor" ie 'what if the star player we signed was lacking any form for the forthcoming season?' (hypothetically of course) or suppose he sustained a season long injury in the first friendly (it happened to your Dad Mitch) also how does the coach know how any of the lesser known players are going to live up to a reputation that was only on heresay and the evidence of a few vids.?
In essence I am saying that the coaching staff can only know after the first few games?
Not the most enviable positions when a new side has to be built?

Neverthe less I'm looking forward to the new season!

I have to agree, the squad looks a bit more balanced than last year with fewer unknown elements.
I saw somewhere that Lowes said that he's going to be rotating the squad more this year. Hopefully that's the case as players like Sidlow, Clough and O'Brien were, IMO, asked to do far too much work last year while other players were seemingly allowed to slack off but get picked every week while others were just left dangling along without even a reserve team game to at least maintain some level of match sharpness.

As I've said elsewhere, the core of the squad is strong and has had the benefit of no major off field off-season shenanigans that we've had in recent years. We are only missing 3 players from the MPG and those 3 players were absent/not signed for most of the season. The 2 unknown players that are coming in are doing so on a trial basis and hopefully can show their quality both in training and in the friendly matches (although, I'd be tempted to only give them both a 12 month deal with a club choice option of a second year).

But I still think the weakest link in the chain is Lowes. I do not believe he has the tactical skills to get us promoted nor does he have the man management skills to get the best out of his players on a weekly basis. He also lacks the basics of media handling as we saw all season long culminating in that little meltdown after the MPG.

I still haven't amde my mind up about that post match interview - I really want our head coach to be passionate and Lowes has passion for the game in abundance, particularly for Bradford Bulls. If that means he blows a gasket now and then; so be it. I felt the fact that Leigh or Bradford didn't get promoted (particularly Leigh) showed an inherent flaw in the new system and he had the right to make his feelings known. Granted he didn't go about it in the right way, but I wouldn't be surprised if that meltdown was a catalyst towards a "fairer" salary capping system for the Championship clubs meaning they can feasibly compete in the Middle 8's.

I should also add that my interpretation of the new rules may be flawed.

I agree it's all too easy for people to write off everything Lowes said as him simply spitting the dummy. Whilst he garnished it with petulance, his core point was pretty much bang on.

Maybe it was, but top of my gripes by a country mile was the fact that had we kicked one particular lousy goal, then we would have won.

And that had we at the end not made the insane decision to go for another goal, we still had a great chance of going for glory.

We blew it. The system was what it was, we put ourselves in a position where we should have been the winners, and then found a way to lose.

Players make decisions in games. Sometimes you win these games and sometimes you lose. With the best will in the world I can't believe that the result of a game, no matter how close it ends, played over 80 minutes turned on one [or even two] missed goal kicks. Every single incident changes the rest of the game completely and no-one knows what might have happened if Danny Addy had kicked the first goal. We may well have dropped the kick off and conceded under the sticks; who knows? Nor can you disregard all the other things which happened during the game.

There are many occasions when players make decisions in a game; in fact there are decisions made by every player, every second of every game; do I run it, pass it ,kick it, do I tackle the guy or drop back and let the cover come across. Sometimes you come up with the right answer and sometimes you don't, but I don't believe that any single decision decides a game, even if it comes very late on and people all around you are screaming that it did.

Leigh were 26-4 up against HKR at half time in the first 8s game, then 2nd half they made some unbelievable decisions time after time and the rest as they say is history. Would Leighs 8s campaign have been different had they beaten HKR? Who knows, especially as Wakey only pipped us by a point also. They just did not seem like the same team from game 2 onwards.

To be right, Leigh just played like they'd played all season; they pushed the passes and tried to run up a big score. This is exactly what I meant when I said they had a good side but were let down by their tactics - what they did is fine in the championship because you can afford to make errors and most often you'll get away with it, but SL sides will burn you and they'll usually play for the full 80.

I'm assuming Leigh won't make the same mistakes again and will have learnt that there are times when you take a more conservative approach - in the same way, I'm assuming Jimmy Lowes will have learned a little about rotations and not burning players out...

Well Bradford are making a decision on Jacks and Caprice this week. Personally, I'd give both a 12 month deal with the club having the option to extend. Caprice is switching codes and you can't expect a player doing that to be an instant superstar. Jacks needs time to bed in and form a partnership with Gaskell. Added to that, neither are likely to command large wages, we can still keep space open should other players come on the market down the road

I've not been to any friendlies so i'd be interest to hear how Jacks has gone on? Will he be good enough to displace Addy from the Scrum half spot?

I wanted us to sign a scrum half of enough quality to make that position his own beyond question, but obviously that would mean that he would need to be better than Addy. If he isn't then he'd just be a back up option so I wouldn't be too bothered if we didn't sign him.