Drinkwater and his agent seem to be playing hard to get and will maximise their demands within the constraints of our available Salary Cap.

I would imagine its more to do with Catalan agreeing to supplement Drinkwater's salary for 2023 given he is under contract with them. I'd imagine he will be on less with us for 2023, so he should expect Catalan to make up the difference.

The problem is that at this late stage we are desperate for a playmaking halfback, and we will probably end up paying Catalan a transfer fee as another poster on here has suggested.

The fee that we could pay would then be given to Drinkwater by Catalan and that would sort out the salary differential.

Need to move on then and look at alternatives.

We did most of our business very early, the crucial element to 2023 recruitment was obviously the pack, Mikaele and Nicholson came in early, and the others were sorted and signed very early in 2022. The two gaps are centre - which I doubt Powell thought was a problem at the start of 2022 - Wardle (didn't work out due to Huddersfield demands) and half back. My guess is that Powell expected Ratchford to take up that position, but as time has gone on, he obviously feels that Ratchford isn't the right fit for that anymore. The talks with Drinkwater seem very advanced and preseason hasn't started in earnest yet. I think some more players link up on Monday, with only Willams absent till the new year, some clubs as far as I am aware haven't started pre-season yet.

There has been a huge overhaul of the playing squad, if we are successful in bringing in a centre and a new half back, its likely 9 players will be in the 17 in 2023 that weren't at the club at the start of 2022. The change I think has been deeper and faster than most expected, if we can get Drinkwater over the line, I think the only issue is centre, which is disappointing given we seemed to be in a good position with Wardle, but sometimes things don't go your way, I don't think the club has done too badly tbh.

A good pre-seasoning and you'll be ready to enter the fray (bentos).

Drinkwater has now signed (finally).

I'm happy with that and i think with him onboard we're good. You can do much worse than Ratchford at centre, and i think he'll do a decent job there. Yeah he's not speedy but but he's skillful with good hands and a good kicking game. He's solid defensively and good in attack. I know everyone wants a new centre to come in but with Ratchford at left centre i'm not worried to be honest.

Ratchford at centre is not my biggest concern. He has nice jink, quick off mark & very good hands.

So is Drinkwater going to be confirmed then? Not seen anything. Should I ring the shop?

The announcement will probably be part of the spin for the Season Ticket roll-out.

No squad is perfect (apart from soooper dooooper Saints obviously who no doubt would defeat a combined best of Anzac team while blindfolded). I am a lot happier with this seasons squad than last. Just hope they gel. Ratchford isn’t the perfect solution to centre especially given his increasing tendency to run laterally and cut off space to the side, but is that any worse than last season with the out of form King?

Talking of lateral, or any worse than Mata'utia? If he puts his winger away with a timely pass presumably lining up with Curie and Ashton then that might work

the left wing probably has more chance of being put away by matautia than whoever is outside him.

Players tend to run laterally a lot when the forwards aren’t finding their way through and the team is stuck in their own 20. Take Makinson at the weekend as an example.

I think if the pack fires next year like we all hope it will, then we’ll see some better centre play than we expect. We may even be a little surprised. Remember how good Jordan Turner was on the wing for Cas, for the short time he spent there before retirement?