lets just hope now agars gone,we never see horne play scrum half again.

cunningham is back up hooker with ellis and nicklas for the half back positions. obst isn't needed as the club have already said

Nowt to do with Agar. If Long had stayed fit you wouldn't have seen him play SH for the last two seasons.

it wasnt a dig at agar and i do like horne,i just think going right back to when mcrae was here last time,succesive coaches have tried to make horne a makeshift scrum half with a kicking game and its never worked.

At 7, neither are good enough/suitable. At 6, Horne still has some question marks for me. I'm quite certain that Obst is not good enough though. He's an enthusiastic dummy half runner, no more, no less.

Plenty of options in the squad

Full back - McKinnon, Briscoe
Wing - Briscoe, Sharp, Lyne
Centre - Yeaman, Martin, Turner, Crooks
5/8 - Horne, Nicklas
Half - Seymour, Ellis
Prop - O'meley, Lynch, Moa, O'carroll, Bowden
Hooker - Heremaia, Houghton, Cunningham
Back row - Westerman, Manu, Tickle, Cunningham, Kent, Green, Pearce

Utility - Whiting, Obst

Looks pretty good to me. Another experienced back rower in there would make the pack stronger, which we will hopefully get.

So as it stands we have 4 props and 3 back rowers with 1st team experience. Doesn't sound like plenty of options to me

Snap , A couple of injuries and we will be struggling . I want to see the youngsters used but not all of them at one time .

How are they supposed to gain 1st team experience if we don't trust them to show us what they can offer?

Last years squad fowards where Washbrook and Dowes.

I'd rather have the likes of Green, Cunningam etc than keep and play these two.

In fact I'd rather play the above over Lauaki.

Another foward will be signed, Whiting in the pack and we are OK.

It's a tricky one as you don't want to be relying on the youngsters too much, but at the same time you don't want to have the squad so full of seasoned pros that they don't get a look-in. Personally, I still think we're at least two experienced players short of giving the youngsters the best environment to develop in.

You ease them in, not depend on them

Could Pearce be our new Luauki? Only better hopefully.

Just out of interest, how would you ease them in? Play them over an experienced forward every once in a while? Try out one of them each week?

By easing them in one or two at a time for a week here and there with plenty of "protection" from established players.

As it stands, even an average amount of injuries to our pack could see us relying on too many of them for a substantial part of the season.

Play them when you get the inevitable injuries. As it is now, a couple of forwards out and we'll have 3 inexperienced forwards in the 17.

I don't disagree, as I said I think we do need another experienced forward in the pack, but I think this will be their perfect chance to break into the first team squad and finally get their chance. We must take at least some risk, otherwise they will never make it and will be another 'could have been'.

So you would play them over Manu, Tickle, Westerman or Whiting, just to try them out? Or would it be because of injury?

I'm very very happy to see the back of Radford, Dowes, Lauaki and Washbrook but as ordinary as they all were, we can't just replace them in our squad with untried academy players.

5 forwards out and only two in, should surely mean that we plan to have another two forwards coming in to address the balance?

I would guess that there will be at least one more forward, not sure about a second.

When the inevitable injuries occur of course.

We only have three established back rowers at the club. At least one of those three could be missing every week on average. Not to mention the probability of Tickle having to cover our very-light-on-numbers front row when injuries hit there as well.

I can see everyone point regards short of experienced players.

So should we have kept Dowes and Washbrook then?

Some of these youngsters should have been given an opportunity last season rather than Agar posting them to 18th man all the time. Now we have a couple more potential players that could step up , Gentle will find it more difficult to give everyone a place within the 17.

Realistically were not gonna achieve anything this coming season so lets go with what we have and blood some youngsters who will either sink or swim but as a club we'll hopefully be the better for it in the 2013 season