From leigh? cool

Young Leyther, Prop.

The club had been planning for this sort of stability going back a few years ago when Cullen was here, at the start of 2008 we had a side of players with the right age balance mostly on long term contracts, so the team we had for 2008 was always going to have the same core for the next few seasons. They are steadily ageing so I reckon that team will have one more season together and then for 2012 we will see a substantially different team, I would be surprised if more than one or two of Morley, Briers, King, Monaghan, Hicks, Solomona, Higham or Clarke were still with us in 2012. So if we are not making a lot of signings for 2011 then I would expect we will have to be very active in the market for 2012. I expect Simon Moran is onto this as we speak seeing as the groundwork for a lot of signings seems to be done 12-24 months in advance.

The 2012 team will probably shape up like this

1 Hodgson
2
3 Bridge
4 Atkins
5 Riley
6
7 Myler
8 Wood
9
10
11 L Anderson
12 Westwood
13 Harrison

14
15 Grix
16 Cooper
17 McCarthy

I reckon another halfback, a front rower, a winger and a hooker will have to come in. All of them will have to be front line well established players. If we aren't able to get them all in for 2012, then I can see us offering one year extensions eg to Briers, Morley/Carvell, and trying to get replacements in for 2013.

The rest of the age profile of the side will have shifted up nicely though, because the 19-24 year olds now will be 21-26 and approaching their prime, so whilst people are right to a point that we have got a few ageing players, we aren't a massively ageing side, we will just need a number of recruits for 2012 and 2013.

monas has already signed a contract extension to cover 2012,i expect king will do the same when his contract comes up for renewal.

Who else in the U20's apart from McCarthy could move through to the 17

By all accounts, I would expect to see the name of Evans in there at least twice.

2 Evans, Williams, Burke, O'Brien, Neal, Broughton all should be making the grade

You can't rely on who will make it and who won't coming up from the youth team, they might be squad players by then getting their chance but we will need to have senior players coming in to replace the ones who are leaving. A couple of years ago we would have all been dead certs that Penny would be first choice winger. Morley I think has extended to 2012, so maybe the big change will happen in 2013, it might be staged with some guys leaving in 2012 and some in 2013.

It we are to continue the recent successes then we cannot afford to alter the team year on year by more than two new players at a time. Those two must be the same quality as the players they join. This will restrict the U20's as only the bet will come through. Biggets problem will be replacing Briers, King and MOS 2010 Moz

Well we altered it this year by three players (Solomona, Atkins and Myler) without disruption. 3 players a year will mean 9 new players by 2013. The halfback will be the hardest one because it will be difficult to replace Briers and there is very little quality in the UK apart from guys who are already at rival clubs to us so I would expect we will go Australian. There is always a risk that they won't fit in SL at halfback, like Sullivan and Monaghan who ended up playing at hooker. So maybe we will go for someone who has been in Super League and done it eg Michael Dobson.

Like you say only the best will come through from the Academy. Now that we are a better side it's harder for players to establish themselves in it, in the DVDV and Cullen eras a lot of young players came through the academy and played in the first team like Mark Gleeson, Hulse, Alstead, Stenhouse who wouldn't have been able to get in now, only the best of the best (Riley and Harrison and maybe Cooper) can establish themselves.

I think jarrod sammut could do a job for us. The guy is 23 and has a decent kicking game and bags of enthusiasm. Can see rhys williams having a big future with us aswell.

I'd add Craig Harvey to that list. Great feet and superb support player. imo at front of the queue of the youngsters.

i think matty smith could do a job at wire after last fri!

the problem with sammut is he can't spell.

LoL jk i have been thinking this year he'd fit in nicely in out set up .

Alex Thompson at hooker got at least one first-team game last year and looked the part.