He was named at loose, played in his normal position, defended as normal

Yep ... we have done that sort of thing a few times.

In fairness to my comment on his defence, he wasn't this bad in the previous 2 years, and on our winning run it improved somewhat.

But it was absolutely dreadful for that period of 4/5 games

Spend his money more wisely on other players

Leeds Rhinos would disagree, when they played Burrow at 9, he defended 3 in on the right edge. And he was a “motivated” individual.

The skill of defending in the middle is underrated. The difference between decent defenders and great defenders, which he would need to be if he wants to play 13 for a club trying to hunt for a championship, is highly technical.

we shouldn't be offering him a new contract.

Thanks for your efforts and all the best.

Agreed, in a salary capped sport Austin isn't someone we can keep a hold of. We have Ratchford (and Dean) to cover half back with Thewlis dropping into full back.

For this season i would be bringing him off the bench to run at tiring defences. I cant see us offering him what he would want for a new contract, and it isn't a priority unless Widdop goes and even then I personally would not be looking to keep him.

I think Austin is a good but limited player. He does a few things well but other teams have worked him out and after a great start in the first half of his first season, opponents have been able to keep him in check.

He hasn't sulked or moaned or wanted to go home, his attitude has been good, he's embraced playing for Wire, so fair play to him.

I see Austin as another example of us being done a bit by overhype from NRL agents, similar to Tyrone Roberts. In both cases we were led to believe we were getting a blue chip player who would separate us from our rivals, maybe we ended up paying a contract to reflect that too. When Austin arrived there was all that hype about him being Man of Steel before he'd even started playing.

This has probably contributed to why Austin gets a lot of stick on here. He was overhyped as a signing (not his fault). Whereas someone like Nat Wood, who had been a bench player/understudy to guys like Lam and Stacey Jones in the NRL, came over as a relative unknown, and wasn't saddled by expectations.

It's an interesting point on the marquee signing rule, it's there to get these players over, but then that comes with more expectation because everyone knows he's on bigger bucks, including his team mates. The interesting question is, if he were an unknown, unhyped player, would we be happy with him and his performances? If Mamo was on £400k a year would there be the same love for him? Money vs performance is a very interesting dichotomy, it's why businesses don't like employees talking about salaries. I don't think Austin steals a living, he doesn't amble round the pitch or cry to go home, he seems to want the life he's got over here.

He'll get a Super League contract, thats a cert. Whether it's with us may depend on Widdop staying

Instead of Walker? Or are you running a bench with 2 props, Hooker & Half back? I guess he would play a role at 13 so could be used to spell J Clark, we'd lose a bit of grunt though and I'd worry if we lost a forward through injury / HIA that we would be too lightweight. D Clark also looks to be struggling lately, hopefully the 2 and a half week break they will now have between the Leeds defeat and Leigh will refresh him a little but at the minute I'd be reluctant to drop Walker from the bench.

Have Davis as back up hooker to either Clark or Walker. But you’re right about looking lightweight and maybe the solution to Austin ,if Widdop and Williams are fit is to leave him out completely.

The squad is very thin this year and we've had to put players out on saeson's loan in order to make space for Williams. The fixtures are going to pile up, we will lose players to injury or the need to isolate and those that do play will need to be spelled.

Austin is a senior player. We will see him play more often than not and it may be a case that we'll see a few players playing out of position between now and October.

October? I like your optimism

Ahhh my bad, i thought he played at 13 and just remember him having a pretty poor game. Proberbly just my memory being rubbish