The transfer fee is irrelevant, I don't care how much it is. £200,000 may sound a lot of money but as we are up to the max salary cap, what else are we to spend it on? Add in the spare cash the board may be willing to put in, and it's not a significant amount of money. Simon Cowel spends that much on his teeth each year, don't know about Moran.

All that really matters is: do you get a return on the percentage of the salary cap that you allocate to a particular player?

The transfer fee has no bearing on what is available to spend on players, as unlike football, we have a salary cap. All that matters is how much are we paying him a year? Which nobody knows.

If I had to guess, it wont be mega bucks, not in the King region by a long way.

You couldn't have Burrow because his wages would be more.

Obviously i don't think it's that much but you outbidded Leeds who have been tracking him for the last 2 years and really wanted his signiture. Leeds is also his home town and where he coaches so the wage offer must also be very good!

Maybe we can do a Wigan and get his Mrs on the cleaning staff to pay her for a hour a week just like they did for that little Ginger sod Radlinski.

Just looking at some stats, which obviously do not tell the whole story, but a couple of days ago, I compared Myler to Long, and their defensive stats are nigh on identical. Now we all know that Long isn;t the best defensively, but if Myler at his age can defend at a level that the so called best 7 in Britain can, then it's not a bad starting point. His defence is also better than Briers, who most will admit has been much better this year.

To provide some figures for comparison on tackle completionMyler (82.3%)
Dobson (82.0%)
Chase (80.0%)
Briers (78.9%)
Sherwin (77.0%)

Whilst Myler is towards the bottom of this list, his percentage is pretty comparable to plenty of more experienced players.

The likes of Dobson and Chase have received rave reviews this year, yet their defence is worse than Myler's, yet the way some of the Salford fans go on, you'd think he has missed every tackle this year.

IMO, put him in a better defensive line up, and he will do a good job, I have no major concerns with his defensive abilities after his first year in SL.

In terms of attack, he also is 6th for assists (15) and has bagged 11 tries himself. If he does that next year for us, I'll be pretty happy with him.

Myler literally defends on the wing. Most other SH's/SO's defend in between the centre and the SR/LF.

No issue with that though is there.

He averages 10 per game, which is more than Briers and Sherwin, 1 less per game than Long and a couple less than Burrows, so he is there or there abouts.

Fair enough but it's a lot easier to defend on the wing, against wingers than SR's, etc.

Disagree on that one. There is more chance of you getting skinned due to the pace, as opposed to being able to line players up. It may keep you out of the play more, but I certainly wouldn't say it then makes it easier to tackle when you are out there.

i seem to remember we bought Gleeson this year for 200k. Leneghan will splash it when he sees a player he wants mate dont you worry. I think the age of myler put him off stumping up 200k

Dave, i know your a big fan of stats, personally i prefer to judge players on what i see with my eyes because as you know stats can be misleading.

People have different ideas about what type of player they like to see, i`m a fan of the attack minded scrum half which is why ive been a fan of the likes of Andrew Johns, Alfie Langer and british scrum halves like Andy Gregory and Rob Burrow etc, this is why i like Sam Tomkins as a player as he is always willing to have a go at the oppositions defensive line.

I see Richie Myler as more of a support player that runs off the shoulder of the ball carrier in a way that Shaun Edwards used to play the game, Myler also has a very good short kicking game. Like i said above, i`ll back Tony Smith`s judgement over my own, its all about personal preferences on the type of player you like to watch.

Yep, didn't really focus on the attacking stats, as they don't always tell you that much. Briers assists are quite low this year, yet much of our good stuff comes direct from him in attack.

The stats I focused on were the defensive stats, as these are quite black and white (although I acknowledge that there is nothing factored in for being out of position). I looked at these the other day, because we are constantly told that his defence is dire, and teams will target him all day, when actually his defensive stats hold up quite well. The fact is that we haven't seen massive amounts of Myler on TV, due to the team he plays for, and many of the opinions that we do get are from Salford fans who are upset with him.

As you say, I'll go with Smith's judgement, and the fact that Salford were prepared to make him their highest paid player ever, over some fans who are upset about him leaving.

Do these defensive stats include being the 2nd or 3rd man into a tackle, his one on one stats would be more interesting but then again i always go with what i see with the naked eye over stats and judge a player that way.

Not 100% sure what they include, but they are exactly the same as the other players, so when comparing like for like it is fine.

Out of interest, how many times have you seen Myler play? I was thinking about this, and for me it is probably only 4 or 5 times, which tbh is preventing me from forming a strong opinion either way on him.

Quite a few times last year in the national league as Salford were on quite a lot, a few times this year as well. Granted Salford fans will know him a lot better than any of us, quite a lot of their fans pointed out his weak defence long before he was linked with us.

He has age on his side, if Tony Smith can get Lee Briers to defend better then i`m sure he can work same of the same magic on Richie Myler.

Its just about preference really, its similar in a way to how i would have prefered Michael Shenton over Ryan Atkins just because visually i prefer Shenton`s more attacking and skilful style of play to Atkins who is more about power and breaking through tacklers, Shenton is more nimble on his feet similar to how Alan Bateman was and Atkins plays in a more direct way similar to how Joe Ropati did, obviously the builds are different.

The above is similar in why i prefer Sam Tomkins to Richie Myler, i`m a fan of the type of player that is always looking to attacka and can step past players in the blink of an eye, Sam Tomkins is also very good defender as well and he isn`t affraid to take on any size of player in defence. I just think Sam Tomkins is the better all round player and the more dangerous proposition.

Its horses for courses and people prefer different styles of players.