Wow. Just what do you do as an aspiring club in this country? The current (average) crop of home grown talent is spread so thinly that the quality of the comp is a joke. And as soon as you get a half decent overseas player put in a couple of decent performances, he lands an NRL contract.

The comment in that article says it all: "at his age he was arguably too talented and too young to end up in the Super League". I wouldn't bet Stevo's mortgage on Barba seeing out his Saints contract: he'll either do well and get snapped up back home, or do poorly and get binned off for not justifying his salary. Best Saints can hope for is he does 'just OK' for a couple of seasons.

I really don't know where the game in this country can go from here. I'm an optimist, but I genuinely fear for the future of the game as a top flight sport.

I would image Hiku has now taken part in training led by Agar and decided he would rather not do so for the foreseeable future.
At Cas we have Millington, Roberts, Moors, Jesse Sene-Lafeo who have all been more than half decent. They haven't gone back the the NRL.
It was clear when Agar joined Warrington that you were going to have problems.

Is the move immediate or after our last 3 games?

Just does not make sense if he was instrumental in the signing of Akoula,if it is true well can only see him changing his mind aswell, this is a question that needs asking of Karl at 2pm today.

So what do Warrington get out of this? We lose one of our key players, someone to build a team around, someone to help sell next seasons aspirations and season tickets. Warrington allow him to go, free of charge, as far as we know, on sentimental grounds. Did we ask for a transfer fee to compensate for the loss of his services, did we try to do a deal to perhaps bring over some Warrior who may not be getting in their first team but experience in the UK may help them or did we just roll over, shrug our shoulders and say good luck Peta? I understand that it is pointless trying to keep hold of a player who's heart is elsewhere, but if he wants a move, and another club wants him, turn that problem into an opportunity. Perhaps we will learn something later...?

We need to take a leaf out of Hetherington's book and retain registration until they pay, not roll over and let him leave.

Unless the contract he signed had a NRL release clause and we're saying compassionate grounds to cover our lack of commercial nouse (gotta love a conspiracy theory)

Maybe its about time we just recognised the benefits clubs achieve through formalised twinning/ development/ partnering with an NRL club?

SL players who have gone over there generally come back a bit better (even those who haven't played much first grade) and fringe NRL players (and miscreants) can come over here for game time.

His contract always had a release option at the end of this season if he got an offer from the NRL. If you don't accept such clauses then you will never be able to make signings like Hiku. That is the reality of Super League at the moment.

Welcome back.

So why the smoke screen of "compassionate grounds" if the exit clause was triggered?

Any chance you could get shut of him before 3...

Unless I have missed it, there has been no club statement as yet on Hiku's departure and the reasons for it.

Let's just ask Karl at Bevan statue at 2pm.

Was there no mention of this at the meeting along with flogging season tickets ?

I can't wait for Bonfire Night, at least then Halloween will be well and truly over. It's nightmare after nightmare on Buckley Street.

No, which is why I'm going along to ask at 2.