Interesting, can only be getting fitness for a comeback, otherwise why bother? Covering tags three match absence most likely

Still looks formidable.

cert does, hows he going ? and the team ?

Hull lead 20-10 with an hour gone. Two tries to Naulago.

Naulago goes 70m for his hatrick. Picked up a loose ball.
Very raw but can see him getting a contract soon.

Final score 24-14.

I wonder if we'll see Ratu Naulago against Wigan? Or would that be too soon for him - obviously a huge step up from playing Doncaster or Wakefield Reserves.

Ellis really did looked fit, played the first 30 minutes, looked his usual self, whether he's got the stamina for superleague is another matter.

Saw Talanoa at the game.

imo if hes fit and thinks he can play he can do no worse than whats been coming of the bench in the last 2 matches, if he can give us 2/15 min spells am sure it will benefit us more than Thompson or lane have brought, also ratu is raw but hell he got pace and looks strong, heard Leroy had a decent spell to?

Harsh on lane

Personally think he’s developing nicely

Wish we had Lane at Leeds !

Sounds like Paea failed again to make any impact and even at reserve level. THink this is something to be concerned at as he should have at least made some sort of impact. If he can’t do it in games like today there’s little hope he’ll do it at all at SL, really does seem to be a player that is done.

If a player like Naulago can make an impact then questions should be asked.

Think Naulago is worth giving a shot on the wing as can’t be any worse than Miloudi was against Cas.

Looks like it to me
coming off the bench for a bit of impact i think
Manu into front row and Hadley into the second row.

I dont think he is raw.
Apart from one silly offload in the pre season games i thought he looked good.
Didnt look out of place at saints and his defence is very good
Once we can find some cap space i think we will sign him

Can we de register Dawson? i dont know the rules

De-registering might get round quotas - didn't rovers de-register Dobson to get Mason on board? Maybe that loophole has been blocked.

If he plays 1st team wouldn't any wages he's on at the club count on the cap?

It depends on whether de-register is the same as leave.

If Watts played 3 games and missed 27 after leaving, I'd assume his cap space would be something like 3/30ths of his annual wage.
I'd be surprised if de-registering is allowed, because it implies that they will be registered again later.

Not a clue, really.

If Ellis plays next week his cap space will be...….. answers on a postcard.

We needed a special dispensation because back then there was a rule that you couldn’t re-register (specifically) a non-fed player and re-register them in the same season - to stop teams carouselling their overseas players. Probably still is.

However, I wasn’t able to find a rule saying you couldn’t de- and re-register a fed-trained player. I therefore assumed for a while that the differences in the quality of some squads at clubs that both claimed to be spending to the cap was in part due to richer clubs de-registering their better paid players when they weren’t playing. I never found anything remotely resembling confirmation though. Now, looking at what the Golden State Warriors have managed to do in the NBA, I suppose it feels a bit more plausible that players at the bigger clubs did sometimes take a bit less cash for more or less guaranteed silverware.

I seriously cannot believe the club is actually thinking of playing Eliis - alongside Thompson and Paea we are a laughing stock - stop playing old past it players and either let the younger players have their chance or play players who the club have brought in like Langtree and Nzoungou. Wtf is going on in Radfords head as i think the bloke has lost it!

Two games in , and our recruitment has been shown as inept.
Who is to blame , Pearson? Radford? or Minichello’s poor business acumen?
What a rabble we are !

They aren't.

I'm all in favour of criticising Radford's coaching, but lets base it on facts.

Maybe Ellis is only playing to help the progression of the younger lads. Everybody knows how much impact he had on the team when he played, so maybe he's just playing in the reserves to try and push Lane, Litten, Fash, etc up to the next level. Some of our younger players will have played very few/no games at all with Ellis so it will be good for them playing with such a big on field leader like Ellis.

I can't imagine Ellis playing in the reserves unless the club are exploring the possibility of him playing first grade.
Does this reserve game mean that Taylor only misses 2 SL games? Seems convenient that it was arranged at such short notice.

If those are the rules, fair enough. Especially if it was in the diary before Taylor’s ban.

However, if there’s to be a proper reserve league with regular fixtures next season, then they do need to look at increasing suspensions.

Already, I can imagine clubs who have players banned arranging games amongst their fringe players and kids just to mitigate bans, if that is allowed.

The suggestion that Ellis played just to be an on-field coach/leader, seems reasonable. Maybe he just had a itch to scratch and fancied a hit out as well. I’m not saying he won’t turn up on the bench in SL in an effort to snap your losing streak - a few have briefly come back out of retirement in recent years. However, there is that other plausible explanation.

Or maybe, it's just as he explained it himself. The 16s, 19s and reserves were all playing on the same day, plus we had a couple at Donny, plus a few injured/unavailable, and Radford didn't want the first team guys playing too many minutes. So Ellis stuck his hand up to make up the numbers. He is obviously still fit enough and probably fancied a blow out.