It's funny you guys signing Will Smith and Tex Hoy.
They were both mercurial halfbacks in the Newcastle Knights under 16s, about 10 years apart.
Will Smith comes from a die hard Rugby League family. He plays every year in the Koori Knockout for Newcastle All Blacks - which is a rugby league carnival for NSW Aboriginal players where you will see some of the rawest, toughest, RL played anywhere.
You can put Will anywhere - fullback, centre, halfback, hooker. He's a born footy player who gets in and does any job you need him to do.
The fact that he's never specialised has probably cost him a lot of firstgrade starts.
Tex has a pretty similar skillset to Will, but he doesn't have the same grit and toughness. On the other hand, he's a lot younger and hasn't been beat up in the NRL, NSW cup and Koori knockout for over a decade like Will.
Very few Rugby League players come from inner city Newcastle New South Wales. Off the top of my head I can name Will Smith, Tex Hoy, Luke Yates, Mitch Garbutt - can't think of anyone else.

I wouldn't rule it out, if he does sign and play hooker, we can use Lovodua at 13, which allows Sao to play in the backrow.

Hats off to Adam Pearson, How he keeps finding the money i don't know, but we're certainly lucky he's willing to throw everything at it. He could quite easily watch the season fizzle out, blame injuries (which i think would be quite justified) and hope for better next year. But he's got the money out again and deserves backing, he can't do any more than he's doing at the moment. Let's get behind him and the team.

I admire his risk taking as well. Making it to the playoffs is worth a bit of cash to the club so he is welling to risk spending money to make it. As fans that's what we want to see, not sensible austerity and cost cutting.

Whats the compassionate grounds all about?

Sounds like he had some family stuff to focus on. Especially with him moving back to Newcastle.