neither Widdop or Austin did a lot last night to enhance their reputations in a Warrington Shirt IMO.

They were garbage. Austin slightly less so second half but neither did anything to merit marquee status.

My concern with all the high profile playmakers, and I include Ratch, Clarke, Currie etc., is they all wait for someone else to do it. We still need someone to call the shots and direct the ship and I thought that was Widdop's remit - to date, I see no evidence.

Nor did any of the current Saints team under Cunningham (bar Mr Reliable Roby).

The Saints, Wigan and Warrington squads being compared are all capable of winning a grand final. What’s more relevant is comparing the coaches - I’m not sure where we start on that one. I like Woolf’s reputation. Lam had a good second half of last season, but the jury is still out. Price has a trophy and 3 finals but this hides the very average weekly form, and he’s yet to show he can coach a champion side.

Anyway, back to the thread and Latu - it’s clear Price isn’t fully in charge of who we sign and is under pressure to pitch the likes of Burrell in to satisfy somebody upstairs.

I was enjoying a mid-morning Port & Lemon in a town centre hostilry today and SKY seemed to be having a "lets laugh at Warrington" special.

Highlights of our GF finals v Leeds & Wigan.

I don't know what was more depressing, the knowledge that even with Briers, Monaghan x 2, Morley, Ratchford, Grix, Harrison etc. we still came up short or the knowledge that the baton has been passed to players barely worthy of comparison.

A long dark weekend of the soul beckons.

I suppose the best thing about this latu signing is that we signed him on a 2 year contract! At this rate he won't make a single appearance barring a lot of injuries.

It's not unreasonable to give Widdop the same concession / settling in period for any overseas player coming to the UK is it (given how long he's played/lived in Australia)?

If he was making mistakes then fair enough, but he just isn't getting involved at all and it's criminal for a man of his talent.

Anyway back to the topic ......
Is Ade Gardner working one-to-one with Latu to address his fitness issue whatever that might be. We can 't afford somebody just coasting around. Get him fit or get him out. If it is some injury recovery issue then just say so.

Played today in the reserves, so assuming he did a reasonable stint he can't be far off.

Given the size of the Hull team, I'd be tempted to pitch him in and see what he's got about him.

It must be difficult to be a half in this team, zero attacking structure and seemingly little game plan with the exception of an offload game and quick play the balls. (Oh, and the inside drop off to BMM).

Agree. Let's hope it's on the back of a decent run out with the reserves

According to Wires twitter, Latu and Kibula we’re bench props for the reserves today.
Doro and Louis Johnson started.
Latu got a try

It amazes me the notion of an overseas player having a settling in period as opposed to an English signing from another sl club. Australian teams come as strangers to our shores & regularly take our teams to the cleaners without a settling in period.

Is Ade working towards a skinny Latu ?

It's not really the same.
Widdop could have come over with his St George Illawarra pals and taken Wire to the cleaners.
Having to adapt to a new team, new coaching staff and different way of life is a harder challenge.

However....you see some players settle in very quickly.

Sid Domic, Darren Burns, Nat Wood (instant hit at Wakefield for the half season before he joined us).

Chris Hicks joined at the same time as Michael Monaghan and Matt King, and he settled in straight away while the other two took a season and a half to get going.

Also despite the criticism he's getting now, Blake Austin didn't take long to settle in. He was the early front runner for Man of Steel last year.