Quote Lord Tony Smith="Lord Tony Smith"Oliver Holmes https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-20574311'" Started this year in top form for us. Always reliable and scores a fair bit for a second rower. Quite fast too when he gets going. Id not be happy if he does go but seems like he will be.

Quote Lord Tony Smith="Lord Tony Smith"Oliver Holmes https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-20574311'" Started this year in top form for us. Always reliable and scores a fair bit for a second rower. Quite fast too when he gets going. Id not be happy if he does go but seems like he will be.

Quote Lord Tony Smith="Lord Tony Smith"Oliver Holmes https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-20574311'" Seriously not happy about this on Casforum, Powell is going to get some hammer whatever the results are in rest of the season.

Quote Lord Tony Smith="Lord Tony Smith"Oliver Holmes https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-20574311'" Seriously not happy about this on Casforum, Powell is going to get some hammer whatever the results are in rest of the season.

I'd be happy with Holmes.....except he's a left edge second rower. So we would have to move him over to the right, i'd be happy with that though as we would finally have some attack and aggression on the right rather than Hughes getting the ball and the attack stopping dead every time.

He’s a workhorse thats for sure. 54 tackles the other night.

Seriously?

It certainly looks like Powell was holding all the aces when he was in negotiations for his job - if all the rumours of Trueman, Matuatia and now Holmes are true, then it's obvious he's been given strong control of recruitment & not being left open to any interference from Fitzpatrick.

It's a good thing that Powell gets to coach HIS squad and not have players lumped on him that he doesn't want (a problem Price has had). The only slight worry I would have, is that too much of a squad overhaul means we have a side needing a period in which players need to get used to each other and new surroundings and we end up with a situation like in the horrific Steve Anderson era, when players looked absolutely lost and performances and results suffer.

Obviously, the quality of players we will bring in will be higher than back then, but it can still lead to uncertainty among a squad - it will certainly be a good test of both Powell's coaching AND man management skills.

Is true but at least he won’t need to bed the players he is bringing from Cas with him

If he brings in Holmes I guess that is the end of Hughes then.

Yup, underwhelming.

If the current regime were linked with this signing, the pitchforks would be out by the usual suspects

I’m pretty sure it will be Fitzpatrick’s fault if things don’t go well.

Not really. You only have to look at the Cas forum to see how they rate him. He’s a good player, 28, battering ram workhorse type forward which we lack. I’d have him anyday over a Latu, Akauola, Jason Clark.