Why do we do this? We keep saying get rid of so and so, but whats the point if we can't get anyone better? I honestly can't see us getting anybody better than Fitzy, who has been pretty good this season. Even if we get Patten, he is older than Fitzy and there are no guarantees he will be any better, plus we will be looking for another fullback shortly afterwards because Patten can't have many more years left in him. Keep Fitzy.

Have you seen Patten play?


They are mor or less the same age? (well with the exception of 8 months!)
Fitzpatrick – 13/09/80
Patten – 09/01/80

Different year at school

I have seen patten play and there is still no guarentee he will be any better than Fitzy, he wouldn't be the first player not to make it in Super League for us. I'm just saying we are probably best sticking with what we know. Fitzy is reliable and has offered some good options in attack this year. Patten won't come cheap and I feel the money would be best spent elsewhere, like on somebody to replace Alker.

And OK so they are similar ages but 8 months older is about a seasons worth.

Whilst I have no problem with us trying to improve the team surely the first thing that needs to be resolved are the areas we have no one playing at next year. IE Hooker & Centre. If we can get these sorted, in particular the Hooker then we can see what budget is left for improvements.
As for Fitz he is fairly solid, if not spectacular, and could we go out and buy an improvement, probably but is this the best use of what, is always, a limited budget ?

My Alan would agree 100% with redhope, use finances available to strengthen where we really need to.
Definitly think Fitzy worth another year at least, & new players dont always gel, ie, Matt King etc.
Dont think Fitzy has done much wrong this season & we need some new forwards, hooker & a top centre to replace Talau, they appear priorities

Sign Patten and play Fitz as hooker/back up hooker problem solved!

Hudds were moaning about Brett Hodgsons age when he came over and hes 2 years older than Patten. I agree we need centres and a hooker but Patten is world class

Think Fitzy deserves a contract next year also think Littler does, think he has been given a new lease of life in second row this time around and has looked good for me. with regards to Matty Smith, how can we have a scrum half who can't pass one way??? beggers belief!!

For the record I would keep hold of Fitzy. We don't have a huge budget and even if he isn't our first choice full back he's one heck of a good back up, and like many people have been saying he could possibly do a job for us at hooker. Especially as I remember a few seasons ago there was alot of talk about Salford being interested in Scott Hill and Mozza.....

I'm sure nobody on here needs reminding we ended up with neither and instead got Luke Dorn and a broken down Mark Edmondson. Call me pessimistic, because even though I'm hoping the club do get Andrew Ryan and Luke Patten, I just don't see it happening. Instead we'll probably end up with Stephen Wild and probably luke Dorn back!!!!! Lol.

Personally I'd be made up if we could keep hold of Mark Henry.

Which is precisely why we won't sign him.

If he does come to England it'll be to a bigger and better club than ours.

We'll be left with Fitzy at fullback next season so should probably stop talking about the need to replace him on this thread - hardly going to boost his confidence?!

Personally, as mentioned above, I think we have other positions that we need to strength before we going shopping for a FB.

Does Fitzpatrick count as a home-grown player? If so, I would assume we'll keep him, along with Littler, just to fulfill our obligations - we need 8 'home-growns' in our 25 man squad next year.

It's OK saying keep him, him and him but the question for me is who else in Superleague would want these players if they were released? One of the players mentioned has very low skill levels, another looks like he constantly needs oxygen and the other has improved this year but still isn't anything like the player he was before the bad injury three years ago.

My intention isn't to offend anybody and as much as I respect these players for their efforts and professionalism, I am staggered by some of the posts to keep them another year. All I can assume is that some of you know these players on a personal level and it's possibly clouding your judgement. In my honest opinion these players have possibly two years left in them at National League level.

One way to look at this is thus.

Hopefully next season will be aa transition season with the build up to moving starting and hopefully the progression on the fiel will have started. From what we read and are lead to believe the recruitment is to attest to this fact, we surely don't want to be keeping players for one more season and then risking starting out with a virtually new team at the new ground. no for me much better to improve the squad while we can and then bring through more new players into a more sucessful squad at the end of next term.

For me the only thing i'm worried about is the lack of a hooker for next year, think Fitzy could do a part time job but I don't see him as anything but a stop gap hooker. In todays modern game the hooker is a vital cog on the pitch and as such should be our number one recruitment priority, maybe it is and the club are just keeping shhh about it.