Yes, we discussed this ? 2 years ago. It always seemed a strange situation to me to be running with such an ageing team, particularly as we know Moran is a stickler for professionalism and forward planning. There could have been several reasons why we never brought in [idirect [/ireplacements; the expectation that our youth system and Myler type purchases would come through, pressure on Smith to deliver and hence run with his old stars until they really were totally spent, pressure from Moran for the club to be self-financing (hence the youth system to provide the next generation). But for whatever reason, we did not replace like for like and so here we are with what feels like a panic reaction and heavy purchase of players in the pre-season. But the coach carries the can for what happens on the field - perhaps with the exception of Leeds where uncle Gary runs everything. And I can remember asking whether Smith could do an 'Alex Fergusson' and rebuild a team from the ashes of the old. We now know the answer to that one, the new question is whether he can meld together the new players and motivate the squad to get Wire back into the top four before he departs at the end of the season. With his legacy and personal pride at stake I suspect we will have a pretty good season.

Of course we are all wise after the event.

Back in 2010,2011 I don't remember there being much call to move some of the older players on early. We could have started moving out say Morley, Carvell, Briers, Michael Monaghan at that point even when they had a couple of good years in them, and started freshening up the team but I bet if we had done that there would have been a lot of players criticising Smith if those players had gone on to have good years at other clubs.

It was like Cullen releasing Sid Domic and him going on to have two great years with Wakefield and one with Hull, during which time he was actually more successful than Warrington were!

Wasn't that to do with the overseas quotas? I seem to recall it was a choice between him and Appo and at the time Appo had just been named in the dream team.

But we did release Sid Domic to sign John Wilshere & Chris Leikvoll from St George Illawarra.

Both were off quota. Leikvoll had a UK passport (check out his profile) and Wilshere was KOLPAK

What were your thoughts when we signed Brett Hodgson?

Sorry "failing to get our real targets"? who were our real targets and why did we not get them?

Real targets
Ukuma Ta'ai
Jake Lillyman

As reported
Jordan Cox
Ryan Bailey

As announced by the club

I have no idea why we did not achieve the signings of the higher calibre players.

Wasn't Hodgson only offered a 1 year deal by Hudds? So he wasn't deemed "not good enough" for the subsequent season.

Yes, it was a choice of two out of Burns, Domic and Appo and we made the wrong one in hindsight.

I guess the thinking was that Burns and Domic were similar players, and we had signed Forshaw and had high hopes for Paul Noone at the time, so Appo gave us something different with his pace.

Actually even if it came down to a choice of Burns or Domic I'd have chosen Domic, just about.

This argument about a player being deemed "not good enough" by their previous club is more about the judgement of that club.

I wonder what the St George Illawarra fans think of Mike Cooper.

Warrington agreed to release him so he could sign for the Dragons. If he was not deemed good enough for Warrington, how on earth could anyone think he was good enough to play in the NRL?

I seem to recall Appo being asked to move to fullback following Briers return from a long term injury it didn't go down too well with Appo, understandable as Appo was stronger, quicker, and could kick goals, if my memory is right then it turned out we kept an unhappy player, but no way could you play Briers at fullback.

That was not the best coaching move way back when.

Appo came back from that off season out of shape and got injured early on and then missed a lot of the next season. He was always strapped up and didn't have the explosive pace of old.

Appo could have been a really good player given his natural speed and he had a lot of ability with the ball as well. You wonder whether a super focused professional Appo could have been a top State of Origin and Kangaroo player, up with guys like Inglis, Hodges, Hayne etc as a freakishly talented athlete.

Cheers for jogging my memory, I remember now Appo was out of condition on his return and his form didn't carry on, am I right in that he was wanted to play fullback by Cullen but he wasn't having it hence his poor condition/attitude, in truth I think Appo would have been as much a waste at fullback as would Briers, we had two players for one position but on the previous seasons form I feel Appo deserved the spot and may have returned in a better condition, it would then have been there for Briers to regain it.