I don't think this reflects too badly on Andy Ellis.
The club has a limited budget below the salary cap. Tough decisions have to be made to build the strongest squad possible within that budget.
Players are valued on their contribution in relation to cost.
I have no idea about individual salaries, but I would suggest Aiton and Ellis were on more than Wood and certainly Wildie.
So say Aiton and Ellis cost 3 salary cap points, Wood 2 and Wildie 1.
We need a starting hooker, replacement and back-up. What's the most efficient way of having this. Maybe fans would like Aiton, Ellis and Wood, but that would be 8 points and without injuries, one of them wouldn't play. As it is Aiton, Wood and Wildie would only be 6 points, leaving 2 points to be used elsewhere in the squad.
If other clubs have 100 salary cap points, we only have 80. If we use up points on back-up players, it reduces the amount spent on the first team squad. The loss of under 20s rugby will drastically reduce the number of back-up players.
To me the right combination is to have one established player, one almost there and one developing. Two established players would be a luxury for a club on limited salary cap. The decision then lies between Aiton or Ellis and that's down to coach's preference.
Good luck to Andy Ellis. He is a good SL standard 'hooker'. Suprising that he's gone to Fev, but they are very ambitious at the moment and maybe they made the best offer.

Agree, we can't have our cake and eat it, we want to strengthen in other areas so something had to give and Ellis being one of our top earners was it. People are moaning about this move but I bet there would be more moans if we couldn't sign a couple of props because we can't afford it.

Firstly let me say I'm very disappointed that Andy Ellis has left the Club and I think the Club has make a mistake. Having said that I'm struggling with the "all our improvement" is down to his inclusion. I have to agree Andy is an excellent hooker and his distribution is first class but let me ask a question. Its a genuine question and not intended to be contraversial.

We won our last 7 league games with Andy at hooker. That's 560 minutes of rugby. From my recollections Andy was substituted before half time in most of the games if not all of them. Therefore Andy played less than 50% of the 560 minutes but we managed to win those games therefore who was "distributing", "bringing on the forwards" when he was off.

Genuine question but I think there is more than one man responsible for the improvement.

Agree 100% with this!!! i thought he was doing a good job in the 2011 season with James Davy and Rinaldi and was suprised when we got wood to play the sub hooker as i thought this would be the season when we saw both James and Matty coming through more.

...agree 100% mate !!!

I agree with this. I too am sorry Ellis has gone but it is too easy to come to the conclusion that he, solely, was the catalyst for our improvement. On reflection I think that the Sykes/Smith combination, when it clicked was the reason for the improvement.
Anyway, we move on and I look forward to a couple of 'top' player announcements, just to keep the interest going-and the season tickets sales up! (and prices down of course).

I certainly don't think he was the reason for any upsurge in form, although he certainly contributed.
Where i do think he will be sorely missed is, from his distribution from the deck which was better than Aiton IMO and in defence where he was better than Wood, again IMO.
If Aiton improves his distribution (he will be truly one of the best players in SL) and if Wood improves his defence, Agar will be right and we will have two decent hookers, we cannot afford three, especially if we are looking at bringing some of the youngsters through top the first team.

All the above is your opinion - now I respect your opinion as you know. However it has proved in the past to be wrong as often as right, just like the rest of us.

Personally I feel Aiton is better than Ellis and with a much more organised side around him next year will prove me right, but hey.

This stuff about Ellis starting the revival is an utter myth IMHO.

All this is opinion and that's fair enough. However as I did earlier in the thread have to pull you up on the statement that Aiton isn't a hooker. Sorry Belly but that is a very poor comment and beneath you. If you think Ellis is better that's fine, but to destroy a players reputation in a position he has played most his career including at International level is a bit out of order.

Ellis played a solid part in, but was by no means the orchestrator of, our excellent winning streak; for that he has my gratitude and respect. He took his chance when the first choice (and better) hooker was injured and he did a good job.

It's a bit disappointing to see this 'face didn't fit' nonsense that some people are peddling though; if anyone genuinely believes that Agar would ditch a player who was needed purely out of vindictiveness, then they need to give their head a shake. He's ditched a player in a position we're overloaded in, to make funds available for improvements elsewhere. It's not personal - it's business!

I've stated my opinion on the situation earlier in this thread that our revival was a general improvement in the team rather than an individual.

I would have liked to have kept Andy and I think him rotating with Paul Aiton would have been dynamite but I think the reason to let him go was simple and certainly not sinister. My opinion is that it was not a case of his "face not fitting" but simple economics. Whilst off the field we have improved we are still not able to pay to full cap yet and we have a good hooker in Paul Aiton and back up in Kyle Wood and Mattie Wildie and so Andy was allowed to go to Feathersone as we simply could not afford him and Paul Aiton. The money saved will be chanelled into strengthening the team where it needs it the most - simple.

Best of luck to Andy, Featherstone have certainly got a good one but we have to look forward and wait and see who we sign.

I really can't understand the face doesn't fit comments.

I'm sure Agar isn't in this to make friends.
I'm sure if he didn't particularly like Tomkins or Roby, but they wanted to play for us, he would still play them. It's about winning not liking people.

Equally if the best player somehow doesn't fit the team dynamic, then sometimes they have to move on. Same in all working life. The team is everything.
That in this case includes having too many tools and not enough different types to be able to do the job.

Sorry for Ellis and glad he is sorted, but Agar is clearly trying to create the best team and this is how he sees it working, in both cost, skills and longevity.