Agreed. He is absolutely top class.

Very much in the Dave Furner mould, and that is a huge compliment.

I totally agree. He is a cracking player with a great work ethic.

I agree and disagree, I think he has filled Bryan Fletchers place. I really rated Fletcher and now Hoffman is doing that job.

Hoff is a better player than fletch was when he came. Theeyare at different stages in their careers

For me Hoffman is a cross between Dennis Betts and David Furner - which equates to one very effective forward!

Apart from Hoffman, the quality of this years imports across the SL competition is way down and will continue to drop. Guys like Jamie Simpson and Willie Isa are second rate and offer nothing to their teams or the competition itself.

As soon as the new TV deal gets signed, it will only get worse (add in the rumoured additional team(s)). I can see the majority of imports coming from the Toyota Cup.

Does this include Aussie international such as Josh Perry, Joel Monaghan and Willie Mason (although admittedly Mason has come off a couple of poor seasons)?

Not to forget, Finch, Lima, luke o donnell and luke pattern

I think that could improve the quality of some of the imports. We have to get used to the fact that we will not see world class overseas players over here for a very long time, maybe not in our lifetime if RL un Aus continues to grow and their tv deal is as big as it should be. There are a lot of future world class players in the Toyota cup and they would all want to play well in super league for two years so they could earn a big contract back in Aus. It would be better than seeing average players (no better than our own) just coming over for a bit of money.

Correct but there are plenty of examples of good try scoring records (Ainscough, Pryce, Gardner, Calderwood). I'm happy to have him in he squad but IMO we should in the future be of a standard where he doesn't get into a fully fit squad. When Pat gets back he's probably out anyway.

just seen a piece on Channel 9 news.

The Rabbitohs have officially given up on tempting Wayne Bennet away from St George. and top of their list is Michael Mcguire apparantly.

however it was bit of a non story with nothing official from any party.

but no smoke without fire...

I some ways it's nice to have personnel who are at the top of people's lists again.

Crowe certainly has the money to spend, but I suspect that Madge is enticed by far more than the dollar and his principles alone will keep him at the club until 2012 at the earliest.

Selfishly, I hope his wife loves is over here and with their child being a little pom, makes him stay for years to come!