This forum was crying out for quality backs for 18 months. Price addressed this immediately. This forum said Russell wasn't up to the job - he was dropped and finished at Wire and we recruited Charnley. This forum said we needed more aggression and ability to break defences in the pack. We got Akauola and Murdoch-Masila.

He's doing well is Mr Price.

Quite agree on the Russell issue. Not quite sure that SP had much to do with the BMM signing. He would have had nothing to do with Sita's signing as that was a done deal last season. What i will say is that he is now maximising the effectiveness of Sita and BMM.

You do really have to question Tony Smith's judgement on Russell for so long. Instead of developing as a player Russell has regressed in his time here. It hasn't taken price 5 minutes to get shut. Why did Smith persist for so long?

Russell epitomised Smith's later tactics of a quick ptb and yardage gains. Unfortunately as a tactic (particular for an entire season) it's poor, easy to negate and very lazy....mirroring Smith's malaise for the game/inability to freshen things up.

Interesting that you use the word “malaise”, because I’ve been wondering for a while if there was more to his attitude than just falling out of love with the game.

More generally roughly how many 1st team games do forum members believe a young player should be allowed before being consigned to the “not good enough bin”?

Not sure he ever regressed. Same balance of strengths and weaknesses that saw him go through a lot of clubs before us. Looking at the pre-easter press about him moving on, and no ensuing transfers, it would appear we cannot give him away presently.

Smiths arrogance to stick with him.

If you have £ and title aspirations about a season's worth - max. If you are not first choice, useful cover, or exceptionally promising you are probably not going to make it as a Top 4 Pro SL player.

We have been very generous in the past.

Sam Wilde - 22 games
Declan Patton - 47 games
Brad Dwyer - 89 games
Gareth O-Brien - 61 games
Benjamin Jullien - 36 games
Ben Evans - 21 games
James Laithwaite - 49 games
Rhys Evans - 105 game (WTF!)

All but Dwyer plying trade at lesser clubs.

Harvey Livett - 17 - needs to break through this season.

Unfortunately, there can't have been a lot of coaching done to improve those players. It was easy for Smith with his well assembled imports who carried us to limited success but when the supply of reasonable overseas players dried up we didn't have the quality from within.

Out of curiosity how many were sub appearances?
I would have kept Jullien, probably Ben Evans a bit longer. I felt Laithwaite was in with a real chance until his injury.

Laithwaite was doing very well.
The severity of his injury and the actual level he was at was at meeting with our desire to win the GF and having a fit enough squad to do so, I think had an influence in his release.

A try and an assist again first half.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Wires71's list of "miss outs" on Smith's watch, puts a further black cloud, on Smith's legacy.

Yes, there were some poor achievers on that list, but still some with potential. Smith's eye was being cast elsewhere, on his little projects like Wheeler and Bailey. "I can rebuild them" was his mantra, rather than looking at what we already had, and cost us nowt.
Looking at how much Smith revitalised Briers' career, and getting the best out of Wood, Carvell in their latter years, as well as improving others, yet those lads mentioned just fell/falling away is another nail in Smith's coffin.
Unfortunately, it became [iall about him[/i in his last couple of seasons.

We've not had a decent crop of youngsters at the same time since Penny, Harris, Hilton, Wainwright, Roper and Sculthorpe. Now, I'm not comparing those names with 71's list, but, with proper attention, they could have been A LOT better.

Hope his hamstring hasn't gone yet again, his career has been so stop/start with injuries.

So which of our players failed to develop because of being kept out by Wheeler and Bailey?