French played 47 NRL games in 2 seasons and scored 35 try’s, you could argue that he was a fringe player but there’s levels to it. There’s no way any club is going to bring in the real top NRL spine players or centres in their peak, but in recent seasons players like French, Levi, Sezer, Hastings, Marsters, Lam, Hurrell, Naiqama and Lolohea have all come over with decent first grade records and experience. Can’t see us being in for these quality of players now, we’ll be looking at reserve graders. Not saying it’s impossible to find gems in the lower grades, but as we’ve seen it’s not easy either.

3 seasons and the last season he didn't play a game, was playing NSW cup, but I get your point, Ockunbor played 17 times last season.

But you are right you can find gems there, just hope we we can find 3 (centre, hooker and backrower) the standard of some of those players you mentioned above.

The issue we'll have if we find a couple of good players, is holding on to them, Clifford being the latest example. The knock on effect of being a poor performing club for years is that they stand out like a sore thumb and either get enticed away by a better domestic club or back home to have another crack at the NRL. It's one of the many reasons why allowing the club to get into such a terrible state is absolutely criminal. Creating an ethos of continuous development and improvement becomes doubly difficult.

I’m just disappointed because I think if we put a lot of our resources and a bit of due diligence in signing an overseas 7, 9 and a centre we could have come up with players of the quality of Clifford in these positions and give us a real chance. The potential signings of Hardaker, Adbull and possibly O’Connor (I know you said that’s not happening but there’s a lot of talk) in these positions are uninspiring and any other additions in these positions are only going to be project signings now at best.

He's says a lot of things which often make no sense. I think he meant that in total we had a fifth of our salary cap out.

The target for next year has to be (however unlikely) is being in with contention of the last play-off spots.

To achieve that we have to re-populate the squad with better then those clubs immediately above us.

Our "recruited" players for next year are Briscoe, Hardaker, Holmes, Aydin. This so far is 75% of next seasons recruitment. I mean absolutely no disrespect, but not one of those signings pitches us above any of the lower teams we are competing with.

I make a strong exception with Asiati. When he was signed i was very much "we mean business"

If it was a night out it's like i started on champagne and i've been ushered onto Lambrini.

Reasonably confident the next signings announced will be more encouraging. Blind faith, mind.

If we were genuinely looking at O'connor then it probably tells you where we are In terms of thinking and budget for a hooker. Big mistake imo and the lack of a top quality hooker has been one of our big failings in recent years.

Presumably if we sign Abdul we'd also have to pay the dobbins a fee on top of his salary

We enquired about o'connor but that's as far as it went

HDM article today just says that KR have given us permission to talk to him and won't stand in the way of a move. No mention of a fee at this time.

As for O'Connor, it's not necessarily about our budget but more about where we are at in terms of realistic signings. We might want a top quality hooker but does a top quality hooker want us right now?

We had an international hooker, played him at scrum half then let him go! Better quality than a makeshift hooker like O'connor available I'm sure but need to us a quota spot on one

Oh I absolutely agree and ideally we can do this. Just not sure we are living in an ideal world right now at FC.

I’m awaiting the Jack Charles to Dobbins rumours to start after yesterday!

I'd be very pleased with that. That's the one advantage if we sign Abdull. More quota options. Hooker is crucial for me.

Common denominator was Smith as coach

Peters was watching him the other week wasn't he?