Don't think he has to prove anything regarding his ball handling, he is on a par if not better than most at the club. The fact is we play the kid out of position intentionally or he has to cover when injuries occur like yesterday.

Appreciate he looked off the pace but so did everyone else barring a couple of forwards and Horne (who i thought played well at FB).

I also think that Huddersfields 'up in your face' defence helped us yesterday as you would expect from any/most teams. Halibut constantly let this happen and we didn't adapt our plays to suit, admittedly we lost Phelps which I thought caused disruption in the attacking sense, but we don't have "us plan B" yet do we?

The bottom line is that Westerman now has three years of Super League under his belt and, if anything, has gone backwards since bursting on the scene as a teenager.

Contrast him, to other back-rowers of similar age like Farrell and Mossop at Wigan, Harrison at Warrington, Whitehead at Bradford, Ferguson and Patrick at Huddersfield etc and their careers are all on a firm upward trajectory.

A lot of Castleford fans have questioned Joe's desire...maybe they are right?

Time will tell but I'll be interested to see how he develops into the 13 role if & when Fitz leaves.

We should be playing him in that position now, not leaving it until he is the only option. But as Paul said, while Fitz is still at the club, Westerman will never get anywhere near that loose forward position.

Are you going for a hat-trick?

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the romantic notion that you need to be a ball handler to be at 13 is 20 years old theres only sinfeild who plays anything like that role in the league ,the lock now days is a running tackling exstra prop ,somone who can put loads of effort in thats the modern game three running forwards in the middle and thats why next year tickle will probs go to lock and westerman stay on the fringes where he can use his off load and kicking ,and still be fresh to make an impact ,he hasnt got the workload for loose forward or lock as the aussys call them ,westerman just had a poor game sunday as did a few players too many errors for a team of the giants ability to come away with a win

still think he will be a gud un

Except when Westerman played that role for Cas and was extremely effective. O'Loughlin also plays the same role and again is extremely effective. Lupton also at Crusaders. The only reason that there tends to be back rowers played there is because coaches like Agar are not good enough to utilise the position properly, and think that what you have described is the best thing to do 'because the Aussies do it'. And yes, cod'ead, you can say that's a hat-trick, but it really saddens me to see a club and players with such potential being held back by a moron in charge.

Westerman will improve dramatically next season,when Rangi arrives....

You've got it mate.

You'll notice that at no time have I disagreed with your critique of Agar.

In fact if what fc-eaststander wrote is correct, it then begs the question "why did we bother signing him?"

Then we really will be buggered

Did we decide if Fitz being compulsory at loose is his decision or Agar's?

Seeing as Radders occupied that berth prior to Fitz's arrival, it does suggest it's yet another part of Agar's master plan