Obst..

Quote: Tommy Duckfingers "We want our head read if we go back for Obst. Did an honourable job for us in the past but we don't need yet another mid level mediocre import on the side.

Ref

I'm with you regards Obst, he was a good player for us before and always gave 100% but I feel import\quota places should be reserved for REAL QUALITY players.
Due to not being able to build for the future last year because of the uncertainty we are behind other teams in terms of who we can recruit, but we now have 3 years in which to get it right before the next licence bids. Given that we have time I would rather see us giving time to our youngstres when we need to cover for injuries rather than having to rely on yet more average imports.
Let's be forward thinking, hopefully in 3 years time we will be playing out of Newmarket and so the determining factors in our licence bid will not be ground issues but the other criteria. We excel in Community and Education but are behind in terms of Youth development and promotion. Let's use the 3 years we have (and the 1873 money) to ensure that come the next round of franchises we have ticked another very important box.
We can no longer think short-term, that is what got us where we were before AG came in. Signing Obst might win us a couple of extra games next year if we have injuries to our other halfs, but it holds back Wildie, Moore, Davey who can go on to be the lynchpins of a home produced team in years to come.

As for Tongia or Mathers, as I said earlier I don't particularly like Mathers from what I have seen of him but you can't deny he has some qualities.
IMO both of these players (admittedly assessment of Tongia is not based on many games) are prone to defensive mistakes, but both can provide some quality in attack.
Tongia's step and dummy at Warrington was superb and worth the journey for that alone despite the big defeat.
Mathers was an extra halfback for Cas against us last year and a lot of organising\attacking went through him.

It's a tough one to choose but I'd rather a British player than another import if they are of the same quality.