Ideally I would like us to sign Slater, Adam Reynolds or Cooper Cronk, oh and someone like Thaiday or Burgess at prop wouldn't be bad!
Getting back to the real world (or as much as rumours can be real!) I'd like to think if Soward was available we would be definitely considering it, it isn't looking as though the aussie's rate him overly highly any more. I think it is plausible for him to come to SL but only like Lyon did, where he came over won everything then went back to play SOO again. But he would be quality whilst he was here, he would solve our inability to kick a field goal if nothing else! Other than that, I actually don't think we are in that bad shape this year as personally I think alot of our problems have actually come off the back of a fairly new squad and inexperience off the back of injuries (no-one thought Holdsworth, Ellis, Galea, Yeaman would be injured at the same time, along with Seymour and anyone else we have missing) Other than that I think we may look at getting another prop but I doubt it, and a cover winger, I can't see there being a great deal available other than that. I would like us to get a good "spine" and have a good attitude when it comes to playing - Melbourne have been doing this for years and it works!

He's one of our best players so far this year, a great find from Fev's u-20s!

This is the unfortunate downside to Dual-Reg though, as this means that Jamie Shaul has nowhere to play.

East Hull ?

Unfortunately never made it into a proper rumour; but Gareth Widdop has signed for the Dragons: www.dragons.com.au/news-display/72816

Unfortunately never made it into a proper rumour; but Gareth Widdop has signed for the Dragons: www.dragons.com.au/news-display/72816

I was saying that there has been a lack of any sort of recruitment strategy for years or at least if there was one it's not been applied properly resulting in us signing players just because they're available without any thought to the future. BUT even with the best strategy it will not be possible to find a place for everyone because of the uncertainty of whether a player will develop the way you think , the sometimes randomness of when players "break through" and because there is always a pressing need to put out a competitive team. In Shaul's case it appears that he wasn't thought to be ready when we signed McDonnell , whether that was right or wrong is difficult to know especially as we've seen him play only one SL game to date. The important thing is to make sure that your system produces numerous youngsters that can become SL standard so that when this sort of thing happens we accept it on the basis that we can't accommodate every player all of the time. It's a balancing act but one that I think the current regime are paying attention to. Of course the U19's system to say the least doesn't help.

I don't think the May 1st anti-tampering deadline is going to help matters either.

Clubs are going to have to make difficult decisions about players like Shaul much earlier than they should need to.