I thought the first 10 games of the season we had him he was superb, then the whole team just lost form an dropped off a cliff.
It's a shame as i would have loved to see what Burgess could have done with him.
Pure definition of a powerhouse big bopper but with good ball handling as well. Not many of those about now unfortunately.

Oh i thought they were in play from next year, i may have read it wrong and jumped the gun myself

Agreed. I love how the term "big bopper" now seems to have stuck. We need a big bopper for 2025.

Out of interest - will Warrington be signing a replacement for Drinkwater or is the plan to run with Leon Hayes?

We have Oli Leyland from London, not sure if we going with just those 2 but would not make sense to sign a third halfback

I would say it's almost certain that Burgess is putting his faith in Hayes as first choice. He's intimated this all year.

Not so sure that stands now given the signing of Leyland. Think it will be what Burgess and the coaching team see during preseason.

A have a feeling Hayes will go the way of Riley Dean, Dec Patton, Morgan Smith, Gaz O'Brien, Gary Hulse, Jamie Durbin etc.

Steady. I like the look of Leyland but let's see what happens at the start of the season. Hayes looks a great positive influence & he played so well.

My thoughts are in the past we have had an experienced half who automatically starts and a youngster coming in if said half is injured or rested. Now we have two youngsters pushing for the spot neither will want to be the one that doesn’t start so will push each other to get it. I actually like this scenario both will be hungry.

We’ve had all the world class halfbacks and won nowt, while it was Patton that won a CC and got us to 2 GF.

Give me Hayes all day

I'd be delighted if he develops into a top halfback.

Hayes had the shirt before he was injured.

It was a very serious break that Hayes had and hopefully he will make a full recovery but only time will tell.

Leyland has signed for Wire with a view to playing 1st team rugby, so good luck to him.

I think both have real potential. However I don't think either address our long standing issue of deep kicking when we're struggling for yardage out from our own line. Hayes defends well and has a nice passing and short kicking game. Leyland is quite an exciting runner and also appear to have a reasonable short kicking game. Looking forward to see how they do in preseason games.

Leyland is ahead of Hayes in terms of experience and skill level, can't see Hayes taking the starting spot ahead of him unless he really turns it on in pre-season and Leyland doesn't.