Widdops english

Technically it doesn’t matter, bizarrely even though he is English he would have to have been registered with a UK club before the age of 21 to not count as a quota player.

Whether the SL will grant special status as he is an England international I’m not sure - it is a bit of a ridiculous situation.

I doubt widdop would be available this season anyway.

IF we are able to bring someone else in then I'd be surprised if would be a quality half for a one year contract unless we were to pay a fee, but surely there is no point in that either for a one year contract. I'm not sure what I would do with the space really. I'd give Dec a go with livett and ratchford as options and see who the best we can get to cover as much as possible. Another like mamo would be good now I suppose, wing and FB cover in case we need ratchford in the halves for an extended period.

In the circumstances surely we could ask the RFL to allow us for special dispensation to sign another overseas player?

Could Sandow be persuaded to walk out on his mining job and come back over for one more crack at SL?

terrible way to end a career... an honest professional player that has put his body on the line many times.

Not overly concerned with entering a deperate search for a replacement as i'm more than happy with Austin and Patton, and should we need to mix it up Mamo to fullback and Ratchford partnering Austin in the halves.

without doubt its something we could do without, but if Darryl Clark had a kicking game we'd be absolutely fine.

anyway speedy recovery KB

If Roberts is struggling to get in at the Gold Coast maybe we could tempt him over?

It's definitely worth a punt for me. Although highly unlikely, imagine the half back combination of Austin and Sandow (in his early form)- it would be mind blowing.

If we were looking for a miner I would have Arthur Scargill before Sandow.

At least Arthur would be old school not like the modern generation of spoilt player who would demand a better contract and go on strike if he didn't get his way.

If we can bring in a regular SL standard half I think we should, Lui from Salford might be an option if we can tempt them with a transfer fee (seems a little extravagant to pay a transfer fee for a 12 month deal mind), Sneyd at Hull seems to me to be on the outer a little, maybe Hull would be happy running with Albert & Connor in the halves? Releasing the Sneyd salary for another addition.

If not we run with Dec which should give us (and him) confirmation as to whether he is good enough to be a SL standard half in the future.

Either way we need some form of cover in the halves, or the outside backs if Ratchford is to provide cover at half back (I'd rather he didn't).

We could potentially bring in another 2 players off the back of this.

I don't think Brown is on that much money.
I'd run with Patton and if needs must, save the dispensation if allowed to bring in a short term of quality as we've done with Hiku and Thomson recently...if St George are out of GF contention, we might be able to use it the lure Widdop for the last few games of 2019.

Cap doesn't work that way anymore unfortunately. If we have £60k spare we can't use it in the final 3 months to pay someone £20k per month, their salary cap value would be £240k

I'd guess Brown was on around £90k ish along with the money Smith was on, guess we have £100k plus to play with.

There's always a loophole.

You seem to have missed my point that Brown has had the opportunity to gain silverware. Accept that Roberts wasn't the only one who didn't play well at Wembley.

Sad news to hear. I was looking forward to seeing his partnership with Austin. Maybe Ratchford to halfback? Mamo to fullback? The strength and flexibility of the current squad gives many options.