I suspect that towards the end of last season if supporters were asked should we keep Hughes or Westerman the majority would have chosen
Westerman.

Very true as Hughes stunk and we didn't know the corrosive influence of Westerman.

Interesting that the "corrosive influence" didn't come out till after he left. Normally rumours are rife about this type of thing (see Bailey/Lineham). So what was he up to? (Avoiding defamation laws obviously).

Maybe it wasn’t an off-field problem like people assumed. Maybe it was a reluctance to follow instructions in training / lifestyle regime etc. You want everyone on board... particularly more so with Steve Price as I get the feeling if you don’t buy into his philosophy you’re on your way. There was something going on because Karl Fitz’s statement on his exit was very unusually worded - mentioning wanting to improve the ‘culture’ of the club.

I’m hoping Livett can step up into the role of a ball-playing loose forward.

When these players with question marks around them become available, these are the questions to ask:

- Is he clearly better than our current options for that position? (thinking about current year, next year etc rather than how good he was in the past)
- Is there generally a shortage of talent in that position in SL?
- Is he early-mid 20s where there's a chance of maturing, or is he late 20s plus where patterns of behaviour are probably set?
- Is he likely to do something that will involve a lengthy ban or generally shame the club?

When we have the annual should we sign Gareth Hock thread, those questions will nail it dead in its tracks.

In the case of Westerman, the answers are: not really, no, late 20s, probably not. The answers to the first two make it not worth signing him.

If Zak Hardaker becomes available, the answers would be: yes, yes, late 20s, potentially yes. So it would depend there whether the answers to the first two outweighed the last one.