Not that much timber!

Looks really athletic and can certainly run, can see him causing a lot of problems for defences out wide.

Bags of confidence too for a young player as we saw against Saints.

Smithies and Shorrocks had never played there either but featured there this year.

I am not convinced we have lots of genuine options at prop to be honest. Bullock,Singleton,Havard,Clubb,Byrne and it depends on if Partington is going to be 13. Then thats it really. I think personally we will bring a prop in very shortly? If Bullock and or Singleton get any form of injury we are extremely exposed then.

This is a proper pre season kind of thread. It is full of optimism and a fair bit of insecurity. Even if you do not know the statistics you are still aware that the chances of any of the young untried lads being world beaters is still pretty slim even at this stage in their careers. The older rookies have settled in and have done a very good job for us with Partington (if you can still call them rookies) probably outshining Smithies and Byrne, and most fans would be happy to see more of the same. One problem though is that we are talking up this crop of youngsters because of a perceived unbalance or weakness in the squad. Every few days we see Leeds or Saints signing another big prop but we always have the elephant in the room, a large part of our cap money is still going on players who will play limited minutes, if at all.
Do not get me wrong. We have a very good squad which at full fitness could go head to head with anyone but we will be without our number one attacking prop (according to earnings). If there is no money to bring in a replacement we will be using the youngsters at some point in the season and I for one am always hopeful that a couple of them may be the real deal.

Well yeah that's eight props you have just named who he needs to get past, plus Kilner too. Compare that with centre where he's only really up against other unproven players if we get one injury before Marshall returns.

Prop signing - I'd like one ideally but not convinced we gave the cap space for anyone proven. I think with the number of young props we have on the books we can reasonably expect one or two of them to kick on though.

Eight? Its 4 plus ten minute tony I have named

Relying on byrne and kilner is still a gamble for me. Thats not doubting there ability's but if havard,byrne,kilner all need to be regulars week in week out then we will struggle. 2 out of them 3 is absolute maximum for me. Lets not forget byrne and kilner only have 8 super league starts between them.

A similar style player to Singleton is what we need. No nonsense player, just tackles and carrys.

He looks big enough on the pre-season photographs.

Agree just seen some on face book this afternoon looks really fit and energetic.

Bulk up to what?

Wigan website has him at 100.9kg (6 ft 5), that's almost 16 stone.

He is regarded as a fast, agile player. Wouldn't want him to gain weight and lose his abilities.

Because he's a good man manager?

Just a few ramblings. Have any youngsters been promoted to the first team squad this year? Did the change in the age requirements last year mean that we had one year when that did not need to happen? What happens if the junior season is curtailed again?

I’ve seen nothing yet to make me change my mind on KPP, one of the few highlights of the season so far.

Thoughts?

I’m always wary of heaping praise on a player after a game or two but he does look a real handful and is something different in the Wigan line up but early days for him yet

He looks excellent news for Canberra, West’s, Warrington or Union in a couple of years.

Wish I was joking.

Let's judge him in a full strength team.