It all seems a bit reminiscent of the signing of Bevan French himself, when the comment was often made, do we need him? Have we signed him without having a position for him? And in the end, to widespread scepticism from fans, myself included, our England full-back was shifted to make room for him. But that worked out pretty well (and plenty of credit is due to Zak there, but that's by the by). Can we likewise find a good solution for Jai Field? We'll soon find out.

I watch all the NRL games and have done so for some years now, so I reckon I've seen Jai Field's entire career thus far.

As I've remarked before, despite being the 'next big thing' at both the Dragons and Eels, he never was a first team regular, and truth to tell, French had a much more substantial career in the NRL than Field has ever managed. Wiki has their weights as abut identical. I don't know about that, but I will say that Field has always looked 'delicate' on the field to me. Like one heavy tackle would break him in half. A feeling I wouldn't have with French, or even, say, Liam Marshall. I would certainly characterise him as a running half. He is quick, there's no dispute about that.

I wish him well, but I hope his signing doesn't mean we end up losing Harry Smith.

That would 100% have happened under Uncle MO, but not under IL.

How many of our youngsters have left and gone on to bigger and better things under his watch?

Spot on.

Bigger and better? I'd say Long, Gilmour and Paul Johnson & I'm not 100% sure if all of those left when Mo was in charge. Maybe Hargreaves too.

There's loads of others who've had good careers, but I wouldn't say going to the likes of Hudds or Hull is going onto bigger things. I'd rather play for a 6th place Wigan than Huddersfield.

You could probably say Robinson and Brown slipped the net, but for different reasons and I’m not sure we were worse off for not managing to keep hold of them.

Exactly. You could probably add Briscoe into the conversation, especially when you look at our FBs between Rads and Sam. That doesn't mean they went on to bigger and better things tho.

None of which were under IL’s watch.

I haven't said that they were?

The question was “how many youngsters have left gone on to bigger and better things under his watch?”. You listed Long, Gilmour and Paul Johnson.

Unless I’ve got misunderstood?

No, I've just misunderstood it. I was taking it that it was implied that it was common place under Mo.

It wasn't "common place" but it happened more than it does now that's for sure

We produce so many youngsters so can’t keep them all. Some will go on to forge good careers elsewhere, some won’t.

Certainly in IL’s tenure and to be fair long before that we seem to have got most of the decisions that were in our control spot on.

Smith is one that we should be doing our upmost to keep however giving him a starting role before he is ready will be detrimental to both him and us.

A season loan at Leigh or even one of the top end championship clubs would IMO work in both his and our favour in the long term.

Ahh fair one

That was pretty much my point

Rads mentioning Field being a chance of playing on the wing in an interview with the evening post. There’s nothing concrete but does say they’re not sure where he’ll play and that he’s quick enough to cover the wing spot.

He also says it’s unlikely there will be anymore signings with us being close to the cap. Doesn’t totally rule it out but says a player would need to leave if anyone were to be brought in.