I don't think TL is a scooter hooker in that sense of the phrase though Rogues. Look at the way he plays for NZ as starting hooker for them. Dummy half running is mainly left to Luke. Tommy's scoots tend to be more oportunistic than as a first option.

We had three halfbacks. When one of them suffered a season-ending injury, the third - Sam Tomkins - was able to step up and fill the gap. Which perfectly illustrates the point I was making.

In that case with Lee Mossop, Sam Tomkins and Sean Ainscough included in that 24, Deacon makes the 25th member of our 1st tier squad given its been stated the younger players had their contracts upgraded.

So unless you are expecting players in the 25 to go out on loan signing Deacon has completed our 1st tier squad for 2010.



Well form what you say it looks like it will prevent us signing another senior player who would be a 1st tier player.

Dave

Scooter impact hooker isn't the way in the NRL on the whole

Here's a Breakdown
[list
Name App Minutes Avg
Nathan Friend (Titans) 26 2061 79
Michael Ennis (Bulldogs) 25 1996 79
Matthew Keating (Para) 28 1655 59
Cam Smith (Storm) 21 1647 78
Dean Young (Dragons) 23 1633 71
Isaac De Gois (Knights) 24 1560 65
Robbie Farah (Tigers) 20 1553 77
Matt Bailin (Manly) 25 1533 61
Pail Aiton (Panthers) 20 1347 67
Andrew McCullough (Broncos) 19 1312 69
Corey Hughes (Sharks) 21 1018 48
Isaac Luke (Rabbitohs) 18 1016 56
Aaron Payne (Cowboys) 16 1008 63
Alan Tongue (Raiders) 14 989 70
Ian Henderson (Warriors) 18 908 50
Jake Friend (Roosters) 11 686 62
[/list
Also the top hookers: Cam Smith, Michael Ennis, Robbie Farah all have good kicking games.

Hell look at Origin or most of the teams they don't even bother having a 2nd hooker in the 17

Unless we sign somebody on more money before the season starts, in which case we can list him as 2nd tier assuming he fitted and played a game Like I said, i'm pretty confident that IL and co have done the maths.

Remember the 2nd Tier 50k only counts if a player plays a qualifying game for us.

And that's fine I think the squad is pretty much there anyway for 2010. We can look at it again for 2011 with more cap space potentially to play with.

Could Deacon be getting paid a pittance for this season while he still counts on the cap? Then when he becomes an assistant full time (next season?) he gets paid a lot more while it's not counted on the cap?

Feel as if it's a good move just wouldn't like Sam Tomkins to be compromised in terms of game time, but Deacon is great cover for the half backs and even a Hooker got injured Tommy can always move to 9 with Deacon coming into the half backs. I also think the youngsters will learn allot from Paul he reads the game so well and has a great kicking abilities.

Yes.

Yes but if you read the discussion I have been having with S.E.B you can see it isn't quite as simple as that as to what it means for the squad and any other recruitment.

Dave

You could hardly say we 'needed' Smith.

That's a different issue. The question was "what did we do without Deacon last year?" as if we only had two halfbacks available for 2009. My answer was that we actually had three halfbacks available, as we now will for 2010.