Indeed. A very, very good player. We need a bit more grunt to compliment him and Dowes though. Lauaki (and Thackray, to an extent) will provide that, but we could really do with one more tackle-busting, hard-hitting prop.

No problem for me, good player and good character.

I would question some people's logic in that they say we have too many of Cusack's type of player, which is true, but...why would we seek to address this by releasing our best player of this type ...which Cusack definitely is.

As others have said, it depends on the final make up of the squad which we don't know yet.

As an aside, IMO we should be releasing Thackray. Yes we need "impact players" but we don't need an impact player who doesn't really provide a great deal of impact. And who also has plenty of other negative traits, both on and off the field.

Imo I think the club have gone for the old 'professional' approach with Cusack.
He is after all a very dependable prop who gives his all every game and also has no off field issues. We need this kind of player Imo, I am just not sure if he's worth a quota spot.

Next year's pack is looking poor. Unless they sign at least 1 more impact player then it will not be significantly better than this year's/ The addition of lauaiki and fitzgibbon will not turn one of the league's worst packs into one of it's best.

The signing of cusack does nothing to address the fact our pack is too small and regularly gets outmuscled

Can anyone explain to me what "the good standards within our club" are

i personaly think cussack is a good signing has been our most consistant prop this year . also would not agree our pack has been outplayed against all teams . its what happens outside the pack thats been poor

I like him as a player but his age does concern me especially with the injury he has at present. It also leaves us with only one quota spot left, I was hoping with two spots we would sign a prop and a back, now we can only sign an overseas player for one position.

That said he is certainly one of our better props and if it mean we are losing Thacks, Radford etc then I would be happy with it.

We pretty much held our own against the celts

It's unlikely to be a prop. We have dowes, cusack, luaiki, radford and king signed up for next year. I also doubt we'll release all 3 of moa, thackray, maloney

I'd like to see Dowes, Cusack, Luauki and Kite, with Maloney as backup. Let King, Moa and Thacks go. Play Tansey at fullback and sign Atkins or another British centre.

Do we have one or two spots left? Some people int his thread have said we'll have 2 due to Lauaki being on a Tongan passport..

Luauki is a quota player.

If we've done the paperwork correctly then that should be the case. I'm not optimistic that we're clever enough to have done this.

Thought he was non fed as he'd applied for a visa as a samoan which is why there has been a delay due to his English test