With the arrival of Pene who is an excellent signing, there are greater priorities for recruitment than prop. We need two first rate centres, a loose forward and two quality second rows. I think Trout is going to develop into a top player and Norman is progressing well. I rate McNamara and it is unfortunate that he has been injured, otherwise the opportunity has been there for him to stake a claim on a regular place in the seventeen like Hanley, who has progressed into an outstanding player with further development to come.

We still need at least 1 more prop. Pene replaces Amone but still need to replace Nakubuwai(talking in terms of numbers not quality). Players like English don't come available very often, we'd be daft not to try and get him in to further beef the pack up as this season has shown you can't go through a season on only 4 quality props.

I agree that Matty English would be a good signing but for the salary cap. If we are to sign two top quality centres, two top quality second rows and a top quality loose forward then I think that would spend the cap. Personally I think the salary cap should be abolished as it limits growth and investment in the sport.

We have two centres who will be on decent money, a top prop, second row and loose forward all leaving the club at the end of the season, so there should be room on the cap. Though, I can see us going a bit cheaper at centres now, with attempts at various overseas players seemingly not coming off, and we are losing some serious quality in the pack which will be expensive to replace.

The naïve approach to recruitment and retention continues whilst the other clubs continue to ‘make hay’ with announcements raising the spirits of loyal fans. The silent approach to anything positive is once again evident and it is astonishing that the club has not provided a news release on the position regarding Lachlan Lam. To make matters worse it now appears that we have lost out on signing Rhyse Martin. If the club is hoping to achieve the 7500 average attendance IMG points threshold, regular positive news on recruitment will be required rather than the silent stance which is so negative for the fans.

Seems odd that everyone is announcing signings but us. Are we struggling because of our poor form this year. Last year retention was main thing which we achieved if this years departures are a shock we may have been knocked off our strategy for 2025. In the end no one is irreplaceable though but may take work and money.

It is beginning to be a worry. Not only have we not announced much in the way of signings, there's not really much noise from the journalists either. This time last year, we knew we'd signed Trout and Norman, and that was without losing any key players.

I have to say that I'm not at the worrying stage yet. I'm also aware that we're in phase 2 of a transition period in our 5 year plan. Players will come and go, so I think we need to put our trust in our recruitment whoever comes in, and when it's announced at an appropriate time, we can then adjudicate whether we approve of those players.

Recruitment will become a lot easier when we don't have to sign players from other clubs on first team contracts, specifically to play for the reserves. Likes of Jones, Gannon, Baxter, Nisbet and possibly Brand and Wilde all players unlikely to ever play for the first team again, and taking up more cap space than if those squad places were taken by players to come through the ranks. Hopefully we can start to see that happen a bit by the end of Lam Snr's new contract.

But I am concerned about next year's recruitment. If Lam goes, we will have to find someone else to give a non-overseas marquee contract to, and no idea who that will be. And while we have some graft left in the pack, we lose a lot of quality in Asiata, O'Donnell and Amone.

For me , replacing Asiata will have more of an impact than replacing Lam.

Moylan will undoubtedly go back into the halfback role with support from McNamara and O Brien worst case, providing he does go and we don’t replace

Although neither have set the world alight when playing halfback , sometimes all you need is someone to get you around the park and they have the ability to do that.

If Hanley and McIntosh carry on playing like Friday, they’ll have the 2 and 3 shirts next year. They’ll make mistakes but they look much more threatening than we did with Hardaker there.

I’d love to see Ricky have another year and help develop the younger players.
Bailey / Hanley will learn heaps off him and he goes about his business more or less every week and never really gets the plaudits.

It’s no suprise on how well Lam has played with the master back at 13 - it’s just ridiculous how good Asiata is and will go down as one of the best ever to don the Leigh colours. Although best years have past , Hull have an absolute pearler of a player.

"Youth, Speed, X factor." If Hanley and McIntosh are anything to go by, I can't wait to see Armstrong and Hodgson. Leigh have seldom had a backline blessed with real pace.

yoof to be balanced by vet oz prop with interestng histoty?

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