I think that our biggest problems are an unbalanced squad and lack of experience in key areas.
We’ve got no really experienced HB. Hampshire is a fill in. Never in a month of Sundays will he a starting HB. As a FB he’s a liability.
Apart form Farrell no other real quality in the backrow.
I don’t particularly like using backs for hard yards as it covers ineffective forwards.
Cust, Field, Mago, Miski French and Ellis are all limited in terms of really good nrl experience. I love watching Field and French but without a good platform they cant deliver on a regular basis against well coached teams.
Walters isn’t the answer in terms of improving a weak front row. Better than Mago but nothing spectacular.
We need at least 3 really good experienced forwards to to make us competitive.
I think Powell only retains his place due to lack of experience elsewhere in the squad. For me he only keeps his place due to his experience.
Forber will be become our first choice 9 by 2024 at the latest.
Any thoughts of of a GF win for me are totally delusional.
Despite that negative rhetoric I’m still confident that if we can sign 3 experienced decent forwards we won’t be too far away in 2024.

You can still have wingers scoring tries under the sticks though. It would be interesting to see exactly how many of his kicks last season were difficult ones. French would often score a breakaway try but still under the sticks.

This isn't true Stu. I remember saying last year that we score most of our tries out wide. Even if we had 10 break away tries that ended up under the sticks (and I'm being generous there as not all break away tries end up under the sticks as chasers back often force them out wide) it's still in single figures percent of his overall kicks taken. He still kicked way more from out wide than the next best kickers kicked in total! That's a sobering thought...

Quote: Stu M "You can still have wingers scoring tries under the sticks though. It would be interesting to see exactly how many of his kicks last season were difficult ones. French would often score a breakaway try but still under the sticks.'" Decide for yourself pal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8fvoH ... ScoutingRL There may be a few more with his burst of speed closer to the sticks than your average winger, but not enough to be an outlier and many are still in the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the sideline. As a side note, what a year French had. That's just 1 season's of tries, and is probably better than most player's career highlight reel!

Quote: Stu M "You can still have wingers scoring tries under the sticks though. It would be interesting to see exactly how many of his kicks last season were difficult ones. French would often score a breakaway try but still under the sticks.'" Decide for yourself pal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB8fvoH ... ScoutingRL There may be a few more with his burst of speed closer to the sticks than your average winger, but not enough to be an outlier and many are still in the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the sideline. As a side note, what a year French had. That's just 1 season's of tries, and is probably better than most player's career highlight reel!

Smith was statistically the best kicker in SL last year
Smith kicked them from all over the shop last year Inc. More than his fair share from out wide