Given the timing I'm guessing Mikaele has already been asked and agreed to stay longer than he wanted. We can't expect to be able to keep him on a rolling contract if we have already agreed to a release and we shouldn't be asking him to stay longer if we have already committed to the player and new club that he can leave at a set date.

I'd be surprised if we signed a back rower when we were vocal about wanting to add another centre to the squad at the start of the year - albeit Ratchford has performed well there. Be a bit of a waste of a quota spot imo if we sign a back rower with our last remaining quota spot, when we have two first choice back rowers already signed up who are 80 minute players (unless we are allowing Currie to leave at the end of the year and have the opportunity to bring his replacement in sooner).

I'd probably keep our powder dry, if we get any more significant injuries, maybe we can try to bring in a player targeted for 2024 early or maybe a player comes on to the market we are not expecting. Given we had cap space available for a centre at the start of the year, I imagine Mikaele will have been on a decent contract too - so plenty to play with.

Yes, on a more serious note, it surely would make little sense to make no signing at all, whatever position. For a sheer momentum factor, to build on our good start, it would be a great move to make an eye-catching signing, whether from another SL side, or the NRL.

Shame that Luke Thompson has a serious injury, as he would definitely fit the bill of being an ambitious, eye-catching replacement.

Oh, and it'd wind up the Saints fans again as well...

Replacement wise ... you have to be careful. You wouldn't want to contract someone who is not what your really want.
We are going to have quota space, money etc. we don't need to solve this in 24 hours.

Or Thane could be Andy Pipkin and he wants that one

The timing seems a little strange to me. I would have thought that they would have gone home in the off season unless his wife has only recently joined him and had enough.

In any case I wish them all well.

I imagine it was only after his performances in the first 5 games of this season that the NRL started showing an interest. It's a bit hard to take, but he was probably on peanuts here and can now earn a good wage back in the nice weather where his family will be happy. I'm sure KF and Powell know that we are a shop window for the younger ex-NRL players like Mikaele and Dufty, that's the nature of the beast.

Let's see how we fare without him before splashing the cash on another prop.

Just when you thought knee jerk reactions and criticism of the club had turned a corner

He wanted to go in pre season. Agreed to stay because of the McGuire ban, hence why he’ll leave after McGuire has served his ban (after this weekend).

Ok, though we didnt know of the Maguire ban until after the friendly game just before the start of the season.

As I said wish him well.

Without commenting on individual cases, is it reasonable to say we have more than our fair share of home sickeness exits?

Some good points raised, in that it's come at an odd time and do we need to sign another prop, or strengthen a different position. If we are able to recruit, it won't be a signing that will raise any eyebrows given that there will be so few players available. We've had a lot of injuries in the pack, and who knows, we could just as well have a prolonged spell of injuries to the backs. Perhaps the solution would be to bring in somebody on loan should we be in dire straights, and look to use the Mikaele cap money and quota spot on a player for 2023.

Not really. We’ve had almost 2 months to plan for this by the sound of things. Not the best time of year to look for new signings but if we haven’t got some options for a replacement in mind I’d be disappointed.

So you're just taking one person's word on here as gospel?


We're definitely looking at recruiting and replacing him.

There, does that make you feel any better?

Its disappointing to lose him because he's been great this season but I don't think we need to rush a replacement, mcguire will be like an immediate replacement anyway as of next week. We should just see who becomes available, and recruit for the longer term IMO. This week we have Vaughan, dudson, philbin, thomas and mikaele, the following week barring possible injuries, we have the same less mikaele but with the inclusion of kasiano and mcguire after their suspensions end. I don't think we are at panic stations at all for the time being.

If mikaele has stayed for 7 games to help us out, then I'm really grateful to him for his great contribution to our brilliant start to the season and towards keeping us up last season. Good luck to him and his family for the future.

I think we have a well-balanced squad, even without Mikaele. It kind of feels like we have an immediate replacement in McGuire anyway, even though they are different types of players.

Makes sense to keep the cap space in our back pocket and wait for the perfect player, rather than getting someone in for the sake of it.

Legend already