Ahh agreed, I do read this forum quite a bit cos it's one of the more active boards and he puts other "in the knows" to shame! We had one on the KR proper forum but he was silenced!

General consensus im feeling is that us, Wire and Leeds are definitely at least a forward away from challenging Wigan and Saints and I reckon HKR and Wire will be fairly close in the table.

Who saw Tom Burgess to Huddersfield coming then?

Maybe, finally, we weren't prepared to outbid another club just because we can. Whilst he's a great acquisition for any club, maybe we have our marquee money earmarked for someone who'll make a difference to our back division, or somebody a bit younger. Or maybe neither he or Burgess Snr. wanted the pressure it would create.

Certainly not me, very surprised.

Or maybe he was p***ed off at Abe for leaking the Wire rumour!

I'd suspect length of contract we may have offered same or more money but for a shorter time.

What does everyone think about Harrison contract renewal?

Huddersfield's recruitment over the past couple of years makes ours look genius-like...

It feels good that we’re not the only over-spending underachievers. Well, when I say ‘good, I mean a little less sad of course.

Then I’m glad we haven’t gone and committed ourselves for too long to a great, but ageing, marquee player. Widdop anyone?

A marquee prop at 35/36.
Was a big risk imo.
We shouldn’t be signing players older that 28/29.
I’m ok with it.
I ask you this, who would swap Vaughan for Burgess?

Not only has Tom Burgess turned us down, so has Tom Johnstone who's going to either Wakefield or Hull Kr.

So that's 2 out of 3 targets for 2025 that have said 'no' to us in the past week. The 3rd target is as good as signed, but I'm not over-sharing (sorry Ratticus).

Can you at least hint whether he's as big of a signing as the first two? Or is he just middle of the road stuff?

I've been gagged sorry.

Interesting to hear about a few things happening with Penrith while they're in the Uk. Ie, Hayes is training with them to assist in his development.

James Fisher Harris, Dylan Edwards or Isaah Yeo for the Wire in 2025 then? That's what you're hinting at, isn't it, Abe?