Sammut should be a good signing, they need a half back partner to go with Witt. Schifcofske is a dissapointing signing, he probably will play well for 18 months but Kear looks an exciting prospect and hes going to undeservedly lose his full back spot.

I agree smokey and if it were up to me I would drop him, but i still have some faith in the coaching staff at Catalans and we know what Bell has done in his career, no matter how promising a winger is waiting for his chance, Bell has a huge amount of experience behind him.



Fair shout, could be a bit of a mine field legally though i would imagine



Probably but in that list you have named 3 back rowers who we seem to play in the 3/4, one centre who we have played every where exept Centre a prop who isnt good enough to be playing SL and one winger so covering the backline is all they should be doing, I dont think there is another club in the league with as many back rowers as the dragons

i dont disagree with most of that. And its not just Les Catalans, its the whole of super league. Other than an ageing Keith Senior i dont know one northern hemisphere centre i would worry about coming up against. Christ Lee Smith has one a Grand Final and played internationally there and he isnt a centre in a month of sundays. For some reason we just cant produce them. We need impetus to do so.

I understand what you say regarding legalities. Which is why i think we should look at it the other way and look at ways of encouraging british youth rather than discouraging overseas players. There are very simple things we can do such as make part of the
TV money dependant on having x number of british players making x number of games etc. The fact we have nothing like this shows to me there is a lack of will at the clubs to make that investment.

I like that, you could offer money on a sliding scale depending on how many products have been brought through.

Indirectly we do have it via the quota rules and franchising licences-There are quite prescriptive numbers of British trained players that have to be in the squads which increases year on year-The evidence of the fruits it is is bearing are there to be seen by all such as LMS, Tompkins, Eastmond, Myler, Shenton, Hulls young winger last week, Half of Quins team currently due to injuries, Leeds and Saints are playing youngsters, Cas have some great young English talent, I could go on and on. We are now seeing a lot more British youth coming through

There are a lot more young players coming through but there are still far too many older overseas players knocking about in SL, I have no doubt some bring the competition great benefits but there are others who are just here for a payday and are keeping more young fellas like you name out of SL teams. I'm not saying its all black and white but i certainly think more could be done.