A fair analysis, sally
Westerman ..flop

Brown...nothing special..just an organiser

England.... a punt, nothing more or less. Didn't work

J. Clarke...staggeringly underwhelming. His wage gets him a shirt.

Wheeler...Tony Smith project "injury prone" when we got him. At least he was consistent.

Bailey....another Smith project "mental health issues". Smith thought he could "rebuild" him. Nah. We knew what we were getting. A pooh house. Again, consistent.

Russell. Another punt. Another Wigan cast off. One dimensional doesn't even break the surface.

Dodds. Pooh happens. Poor fella. I remember Widnes signing an Aussie Test centre in 85 (Steve Rodgers??), broke his leg after 10 minutes.

Roberts. Everyone knows my opinion of him on here, so I won't break the swear filter.

Asotasi. See above. Alarm bells were ringing, when he swerved a World Cup. Muppetry of the highest order.

We've had a few imports/big buys that I never really "got"
Page one, I mentioned Waterhouse
Add to this, Brown, and controversially, Gidley. One would assume a huge wage, but was at the fag end of his career, and (imo) a glorified organiser. We already had one of those on the pitch all the time to guide us round. He wore a bright orange t-shirt, and carried a water bottle. Went by the name of Briers. So Gidley was an expensive luxury. Plus he missed an easy kick (which turned out to be crucial) in the '16CCF.

Sally's list highlights our poor recruitment. Not every signing turns out to be a Hill or a Bob Jackson

The Gidley signing was a symptom that we had moved back to where we were in the earlier HJ era, signing top players who were past their prime rather than guys like Morley, King, the Monaghans who were in their peak with us.

I think Kurt Gidley was like the Simon Grix of Newcastle Knights, but even better natural talent. Excelled in about four separate positions. He was a total club legend with them because he was a one-club man, because of the connection with his brother and when Johns and Buderus left he took on a lot of the responsibility of being the club talisman during a tough time.

But when we signed him, I remember scanning the Aussie club messageboards and you could see 'that debate' was going on, you know, is it time now for a club legend to retire with dignity. He had his hard core supporters saying how dare you question him after what he has done for our club, and others saying thanks for the memories, you'll be a legend forever but....

So I tempered my expectations when we got him and hoped he wasn't too washed up. In the light of that, I think he was OK for us, he was still able to perform at a credible level and the team got weaker when he left. He just wasn't the elite difference maker that he would have been if we'd signed him a few years earlier. Probably he was of the same generation of the likes of the Monaghans and Hodgson, and would have been a great addition to that team, but we got him a bit late.

But in contrast to Asotasi, he came with a better attitude and tried his best and did seem to provide some leadership which we missed after he went.

To continue signings not quite living up to standard
Tasi,
Bodene Thompson
Dom Crosby
Jordan Cox
Matty Blythe
Mitch Brown

I guess we can't call them busts because our expectations were lowered by then.

Excluding Crosby (and what happened to him) none of those were ever anything but squad fillers which like it or not are needed in a salary capped sport to provide cover.

Well, unless they have absolutely stellar 2020 seasons you can add BMM and Akuolau to the flop list.

Both have the physical attributes to be devastating but when it comes to effort, they sweat less than Prince Andrew in a den of ill repute. Apparently.

If you compare the 2020 team to the one of 2016 (LLS, beaten in 2 finals) we look stronger

2016

Ratchford (had the no 6 shirt but ended up at full back)
Lineham
R Evans
Atkins
Russel
Gidley
Sandow
Hill
Clark
Sims
Currie
Hughes
Westwood

Westerman
Dodds
Dwyer
Laithwaite

Dodds only featured twice due to injury and Laithwaite not at all, so should really include G King (who played 34 out of 36 games) Next highest appearances go to Penny (20), Jordan Cox (1icon_cool.gif and T King (16). There are gaps / weaknesses in the 2020 team, most notably the vacant no 16 shirt, but we should be competing for titles in 2020.

Quite a number of games for squad fillers.

Tasi - 18 games in 2019 season.
Cox - 27 games in 2016 season.
Brown - 12 games in 2018 season.

I'll give you

Thompson - 7 games in 2018.

In the peak TS era, we didn't have to make signings for those type of squad fillers. We used Academy players like Evans, Williams, GOB, Currie, Dwyer, Mitchell and McCarthy.

Injuries account for that, or are you suggesting they were signed as first choice players?

Going round in circles SC, one minute the argument is that our young players aren’t good enough but are given too many opportunities, the next it is your point above. 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. The stand ins, whether home grown or not have generally not been good enough.

That 2016 team finished top of the table and made two finals but it was almost identical to the 2017 team which finished in the bottom 4.

In 2016 we benefited from Sandow's golden spell and also Ben Currie at his best, until he got injured late in the season. Take those two out and the team was exposed in 2017.

No just challenging the term "squad filler" as that implies to me that they would not play much, if at all.

I think we can both agree that our signings in the last 4 seasons have seen the occasional pearl amongst a lot of dross which is what the thread has developed to discuss.

Yes this appears to be the case. Our "areas to improve upon" seem to be

1. Developing our own players good enough for the Top 4 squads. (We will know we have achieved a high standard when we cast off our unwanted players to Wigan and Saints, rather than Widnes and Leigh or the championship - note how many cast offs from Wigan we take.

2. Our ability to get performance value for money from our open market recruitment both domestic and international.


*Cast off is a bit strong, but you know when you release players because you have better.

If we could get the first then we could afford to take more time over the second. Oh for the days when our cast offs were the quality of Harris and Sculthorpe.

I wouldn't call them cast offs, and I don't want to go back to the days when once in a generation talent are sold off to keep the club afloat.