Some of these players who are now effectively squad players will now be playing every week in the U23s anyway. The number of players on our roster between the 19s, 23s and senior squad will be considerable.

No not at all. Just not good enough presently to warrant a jersey in the 17 of a title chasing side in my opinion.

Dwyer - immense? Really? I would say the first few games back he was like a breath of fresh air.

I gave you Farrell over no one in particular so he is not part of our discussion, but, Tomkins not for me thanks.

Yes, our team in should have won it and were good enough to win it and yes 'that' pack was amazing and of course we should aspire to be better than that. I'm not sure that the quality is out there, but, think that the club are doing a fair job. Looking back how blessed were we, I just wish they had started this rebuilding process a couple of years earlier, we may not have needed such a large number of players coming and going in one go, making for a more controlled transition.

I also think the club are doing a fair job now trying to fix a woefully poor 2015 pack. 2016 will show if we can bounce back as contenders or whether we are treading water.

I happy. I've ranted on enough about not having a traditional loose.
John Pendlebury type, Westerman is the closest we can get. So I'm happy. Sick to death of the TS prop at 13 teams.
It worked ok while we had the talent of Brett to offset the selection.

It's in the bag ha ha

I thought we missed Laithwaite tbh, he puts a lot of graft in.

Good luck on this one. Taking one helluva chance, but if he knuckles down and cuts out all the cr*p that has prevented him reaching his enormous potential you might have struck gold with this one.

TS is an expert at getting the best from a misguided talent.
I guess he just confused that with thinking he could also do wizardry with NRL crocks and Championship crocks.

He's certainly got the physical attributes to be a superb backrower. I hope he kicks on because its one of our weakest areas internationally.

There seems to be a few waiting in the wings though. Looks like Whitehead will finally get a shot. Joe greenwood looks a good prospect as well as Bateman, Stevie Ward and our own Ben Currie, so I thinks it's a position with potential...?

Interesting article in the Guardian

rlrl

I stand by the statement that the pack as a whole was poor during 2015. Presumably Tony Smith agrees with that view and that is the reason why he replaced 50% of it for 2016.

There are other threads on the forum which discuss whether or not Wilde, King, Philbin, Dwyer, Evans, Laithwaite could achieve the levels of performance for an elite Super League side 17. I think the consensus was that not one of them is yet at that level.

"Pack was woeful"....,

I can't give that statement an argument.
Possibly the worst pack since the blanked out dark times of Anderson and Plange.
There are individual forwards that singularly can carry credit during periods.