On Cade Cust:

Pros: During his first season with Wigan I thought he was impressive and showed why there was a lot of hype around him. He is more than capable of playing at Hooker (which is a position many may argue is actually his favoured) whilst also solid cover in the halves, which is exactly what the coach is after. Speaking of Cartwright, they have worked before, and has no doubt been a factor in luring him to the club. He is also a SL and Cup winner and still arguably got his best years ahead of him.

Cons: The huge elephant in the room is his recent injury records, which don't make for good reading at all. I know players can have periods of bad luck, but this will mean that both our halves and now our hooker are susceptible to injury lay-offs, which is really something we need to avoid. You could also argue that his form has dropped significantly due to his time out, Salford don't seem to be missing him and haven't appeared interested in offering him a new deal.

He isn't the big name that everyone was hoping for, but I do see the logic behind the signing. He is a risk, but it is one that could turn out to be a good bit of business.

Starting to think all the talk of investment might be a bit of a ruse, as the signings so far baring Asiata have been poor. Some saying they are better than what’s leaving but that’s a really really low bar. The full back would really have to be top class to make up for most of the recruitment.

If there was no investment lined up, Tony Smith would still be here, Myler wouldn't, we wouldn't have three marquee players and players wouldn't be getting paid off.

I agree. Asiata apart the recruitment is all over the place and stinks of average Joes but as usual its lets wait until the recruitment is finished or these new recruits are better than what we have.
Its lucky bag recruitment and Ritchie Rich got lucky with the first ball out but since then his luck has run out.

Agreed on waiting until recruitment is done but it’s largely underwhelming so far.

I don’t believe that, they’ll have been worrying about their coffers for next year if they wasn’t seen to be doing. Can’t see people rushing out to buy passes based on this years performances and recruitment so far.

You're joking right?
Whilst it's been a nightmare season granted, we all wanted changes and we have got that and then some.
New Director of rugby and a new coach.
A clear out of average and under performing players who have been replaced by better players.
Not to mention the amount of youngsters who are coming through and have played first grade this season.
Lets not forget we are competing with another 11 clubs for signings and given how poor we have been the last few seasons , we were always going to be behind the eight ball with recruitment.

The side that started the season; V next seasons potential first match line up:

Walker New full back
Mcintosh Briscoe
Scott Hardaker//Chamberlin
Sutcliffe(although Litten played ) New centre
Martin Martin
Smith Trueman
Brown Abdull
Ese Ese Ese Ese
Houghton Borough
Pele Aydin
Ockunbor Cartwright
Sao Lane
Cator Asiata

Ashworth Ashworth
J.Brown Sao
Lane Staveley
Hoy Cust

Hopefully the 3rd marquee signing comes off and we can add a quality centre

On the finances front doesn't look like Derby tickets are flying out the door, still plenty of seats left in the East stand.

Of course it's good luck we got a 2nd derby but I bet they planned for a few thousand more sales at the start of the season. A shock win at in form Salford might get some late buyers though!

Despise obvious cost cutting in recent years we’ve still had marquee players and still would have regardless of investment. We already had Trueman here, I’m also pretty sure Reynolds was on a marquee contract back in 21/22 and Clifford was offered marquee money to stay all way before the investment was rumoured. For the 2025 signings we must have as close to blank canvas as any club has ever had with players off contract, we were always going to bring in 10 plus players. Reynolds and Evans are big recent pay offs for the club and as for Smith, results and performances made it inevitable it was almost a farce.

FWIW I’m sure AP is confident of some investment coming in soon, and hopefully it steadies the ship financially but I think it will be relatively minor, especially against the expectations people have dreamed up in their minds about someone pumping in millions with little chance of a return.

We're they playing on a 3g pitch? Madness to play him if there were doubts over an injury if so

Quick change of subject but I really like the new charity shirt and such a fantastic cause

Nope grass pitch

Nope grass pitch

Cartwright foot injury seemed.to come after a tackle.
He was running the ball in, offloaded as hevwas going down. When he got up, he stood on his foot and just looked in pain. Physio came on, seemed like he could run it off, couple of defensive tackles later, he went down again.
At half time, he was struggling across the pitch to the changing room, came out with ice strapped to his foot. After the game, as he was walking back to the changing room, he looks in a bad way.