Quote: Manuel "Am in my 70s now, have seen the good the bad and the damn right ugly. Always hoping for the best and never shocked at the worst. We are all hardened to it. I feel starting a season without props is nuts. Lacquer it any way you want but you would expect to be easily steam rollered by some teams. If DF is injured, we are in the poop. Not seen Lino yet and against Fev we were really shocking. The six unvaccinated will mean capitulation of the French games due to Covid rules, particularly if all are overseas players which we don’t know of course. I am a 100% glass half full person but this time have a negative feeling and want desperately to be 100% wrong. The Whitbread signing just seems plain daft to me. There had to have been a young prop looking to come over and cut his teeth in Super League. Playing people out of position is a massive gamble and often unsuccessful. There’s a bit of boom and bust about Fev and exactly the opposite from us. Maybe we will look at things again mid season. Vasty, I would love this re- posted to show I am completely wrong later in the season and I know there will be plus points like Hall (Craig still looks good by the way!) someone said a good big un will always beat a good little un. Against FC will be a barometer as they have a few missing. First time I have felt like this sadly. Sorry!'"
Whilst I do believe we are 1 prop light I don't think we really need to panic quite like the above would suggest.
Battye/Arona/Tangianoa/Whitbread/Fafita are all experiened senior prop forwards. We then have Aydin and Adebiyi as back up, both who have a number of senior appearances under their belts. The prop market has been very lean this offseason. Even the traditionally bigger teams have had to go a little left field to recruit n that department and to what is no doubt an inflated market in regards salary.
Trinity are a money ball side. We don't have the cash slushing around to pay over the odds for players. If we are to push up the table we need to get players in who provide more value than their cap value not less so paying over the odds really isn't an option.
We clearly are not going into the season with no props. We have a set of capable props and some with promise. The issue is we only really have one stand out prop, the others are all fairly similar in style and stature. We may well be waiting for a mid season move rather than panic and bring in the wrong type of person and player.
I think we are OK going into the season with the Prop options we have. In an ideal world we add some size later in the season when players become available on loan etc.