He can do 80 for sure, is Smith good for 80 though, if/ when clark gets banned/ injured? If not then we need another option, we may have it in the squad but I'm not sure I know what it is unless we mess with ratchford there.

If we don’t sign an interchange hooker and Smith doesn’t make the grade, I think Patton would best suited to cover - good passing and kicking game. Not sure he has the pace to be a top half.
Loose forward, if I can use the old fashioned and correct term, will be interesting though. Currie and Murdoch-Masila are best suited to do damage on the edges ( did we have edges before Super League ?) so it is between George King, Hughes, Philbin, Westwood and Livett. My choice would be King for work rate and tackling early and Livett to replace as sub to add some creativity.

Let’s get back to having a creative pivot at loose. The thought of King at loose just makes me feel like we are not developing. Livett, Currie for me. Even Ratchford if we sign a class fullback.

What I’d give for a new Scully.

Smith needs game time and hooker is probably his best bet at the moment. He has the best pass from the ground at dummy in the warrington team that's fast and accurate.his generally passing is impressive compared to poor quality of passing in the team and league as a whole. Ratchford Brown patton could cover if needed. But I think he will do OK and we will have baptiste at loose if we sign him.

Baptiste and Charney aside not heard any other players were linked to don't know if that's a good or bad thing!

Well Fitzpatrick said we are looking for cover at Loose/Hooker. I wouldn’t mind seeing Kopczak from Salford brought in as we need another solid prop, and god knows what’s happened to Hill it’s like he doesn’t want to mess his hair up every time he runs the ball in. Maybe some cold weather pre-season stuff can reinvigorate our pack.

I don't want kopczak, he's poor and not an improvement on even George King. We need aggression in the pack IMO, some one who wants a big collision when carrying the ball and kopczak isn't that. Perhaps we have already added it with Hikus mate, we'll have to wait and see I suppose.

I've watched Baptiste very carefully in the PNG games. He is definitely a hooker (dummy half player) and not a loose forward. He needs to be near the play the ball. PNG and Canberra play with two or even three players who take it turns to go to dummy half.

Something Ratchford and Russell can both do at ptb

Something else about Baptiste is that he does seem to walk back into position very slowly ... quite strange really ... and he did it several times. On the plus side when he goes for it with ball in hand he's a handful.

Interesting, Canberra Raiders sign another hooker (Adam Clydesdale) to compete with Josh Hodgson, leaving Baptiste competing with both if he stays at Canberra... www.canberratimes.com.au/rugby-l ... zgmut.html

Interesting, Canberra Raiders sign another hooker (Adam Clydesdale) to compete with Josh Hodgson, leaving Baptiste competing with both if he stays at Canberra... www.canberratimes.com.au/rugby-l ... zgmut.html

Confusingly, in an interview in the WG today Price says there is one squad place still available. Last week KF said there were 3 as they were looking to take the squad up to 28. Either we've signed 2 additional players but not announced them or we're going with a thinner squad than planned.

Price might of meant one quota spot

Yes, he might have. Good point.

Listening to the Henderson interview he says we have space for a couple more, the three of them must speak together to be saying the same things. Henderson alluded to the fact that he couldnt mention names as if something is in the pipeline. So anything between 1 and 3 more players to come in...

We've established they were talking about different things.
Price the quota and Hendo the squad depth and/or quota.