Have to agree with this Horne is a ready made full back. I have watched Rovers on the TV recently and when they decide to give Judas the ball on 4th or 5th tackle he makes things happen he is a better option than anything else thats available. Rovers dont use him (their loss)

Radford IMAO is well past it. I think he was mentioned 3 times in 80 minutes on KCFM at Warrington - not good enough at all. His stock play now is 3 steps forward and fall into the tacklers

The 2005 pack had kearney, carvell, mcmenemy (much underrated but better than any 2nd rower currently at the club), plus king and thackery were much better then. It also had swain leading them around the field and tackling anything that moved. The current pack is miles away from what we had then

The performances are miles away, obviously, but the quality and ability of the members of the park aren't. The differences in that respect are that then we had Carvell and Kearney. The intention was for us to have Crocker and Lauaki in, like for like replacements (fairly like for like, anyway), giving us a pretty similar pack overall. It's beyond the club's control (you would assume) that they haven't been part of the pack, though.

Agreed.

dowes 2005 > dowes 2009
king 2005 > king 2009
thackery 2005 > thackery 2009
swain > berrigan/houghton/lee
mcmenemy > tickle
chester > radford
kearney > manu
carvel > cusack

lauaiki and crocker wouldn't have improved this pack enough to make it the equal of the 2005 one

Did you read my post? Because, if you did, I'm not sure why you've written what you have.

Anyway, to go down your route, but making it relevant to what I wrote:

Dowes = Dowes
King = King
Thackray = Thackray
Carvell > Cusack
Swain ≈ Berrigan
McMenemy ≈ Tickle
Kearney > Radford
Chester < Manu

Put Crocker in for Radford and that position is roughly equal. Put Lauaki in for King (with Cusack staying in and him being a better play that the King of 2005) and he's not far off Carvell (assuming he plays as he has in the NRL). As I said, add those two signings and it's not far off the pack of 2005. And that's without people like Burnett and Washbrook, who should both be in our first choice 17 (13?) and would be improvements.