Will Richie Mathers be the full back, a little snippet of info(i.e. his own twitter account) is that he is not doing pre-season training with the rest of the Cas squad, instead he has been runnning round the park and doing chin ups on the climbing frame, rumours suggest he has been told he is surplus to requirements after R.A. enquired about him.

With some uplifting music in the background and a load of kids running after him?

Mathers = Rocky Balboa.

Mathers was told around six weeks ago he wasn't wanted. He was offered to us rather than us enquiring. Will be paid off by Cas and be available on the cheap for a year. Personally I wouldn't want him think he lacks bottle, he's ok when things are going your way but when it gets tough he's nowhere to be seen. Not prepared to put his body on the line when the boots are flying on for the low balls. Would much rather play Cockayne there or develop some one like Morton and let him have a crack there.

The locals have been concerned about the sighting of some sort of ostrich type creature in the park, coincidence ?

Tongia has a 12 month contract, we are trying to get Sam off quota so we can sign him as were already full on overseas quota

How is Sam still on quota?! He has been here since 2004?

and in the Wakefield Express this very morn, it says we are looking at someone from the NRL... Tongia per chance?!... expert journalism!!

You know that thing that people say "I just spat coffee all over my monitor!" and it always sounds like a lie? I just did it.

Classed as federation trained but on quota as he has yet to apply for British resedency. If he does get himself a british passport then he'll come off the quota.

I’d rather the club (all clubs) just stopped using these loopholes and stuck to the limit of five overseas players. It’s not as if the overseas players brought in are mind-blowingly good. Although I like Obst as a player, there is simply no need for him if Smith is successful with his visa application.

We'll end up with full quota and then a few that are off quota, no wonder RL is up the spout in this country.

No doubt steading the ship will be a good enough excuse for helping to destroy RL.

As it stands, John, Smith, Morrison or Southern, Collis or Mellars and Lauititti would be more than enough to compliment the squad with the mix of British/French players here also. The additional Tony, the other two either/or’s and potentially Obst will just be taking the space up of home recruits whilst not offering massively more on the pitch.

Exactly, and the sad thing is we had a chance to get away from this sort of signing at the early part of next year. It should have been a watershead. This wonder with imports and packing them in has to change, we need a whole culture change and the first stage is to stop bringing over journeymen, crocks, has beens and never will be's.

And before anybody starts, I don't care if Rangi Chase plays for England, I don't care if Hull KR do it, I'm not bothered that England RU and Cricket bend the rules - this is my club and my game and I think its wrong.

Is our season going to be much worse if we had Mathers instead of Tony or Tongia? Would we finish much lower down the league if we had Moore in the halfs instead of john or smith? We've got rid of some poor imports in hicky, Hendo, Korki and Smith (hopefully Semi too) and we replace them, most likely, more of the same.

Its lazy and I am sick of us taking the easy option, if Obst comes back (as good as he was for us) it speaks volumes about us and our contribution to the game. 6 months ago the board was flooded with posters crowing about how good the local league set up is, how its a hot bed of RL round here and how Wakefield have produced huge amounts of players and how much of a travesty it would have been if Crusaders had been given the gig instead of us.

We had the excuse of no dosh and relegation hanging over us when Ted was in charge, so the young 'uns went elsewhere. I wonder what Glover and Agar's excuse is?

Shame, cos we appear to be making decent strides in plenty of other areas.

I agree with the majority of your post, but I suppose the Chase example is pertinent; if the people running the game at the very top level are prepared to cynically exploit the loopholes that currently exist to crowbar a player like Chase into the national side, it's hardly a surprise that SL clubs will do the same thing. Last season, we even had the unedifying spectacle of the RFL colluding with HKR to cheat Willy Mason into their squad - a pretty low point for RL.

Either way it needs sorting, for all the reasons you've highlighted.

^^^ sums it up really well ^^^