Ah, so now your comment about his size and weight has been proven to be nonsense, you now turn down the "experience" avenue. The fact that he has played in the back row for us before obviously means nothing at all.

As for your pathetic Wayne Bennett comment, you have given your dubious opinion on all manner of positional discussions, and every other one of us is entitled to do the same. Maybe I should end this with a pointless expletive to try and give it gravitas. FFS. In fact, I missed the heady journalistic trick of putting something in the italic font too so, cop [ithis[/i!

Such beautifully angry eloquence. When aimed at somebody else, your outrage is truly a thing of wonder.

Which half-back did we miss out on because of the money spent on Westerman?

Did i actually say we missed out on one....NO...if you read it again,i said the momey COULD HAVE gone on a quality half back or should i have said towards??
Never mentioned missing out on one.....stop being pedantic and clever behind that badge of yours....its actually getting quite pathetic now.

How exactly am I hiding behind my Mods badge? I posted a perfectly reasonable and polite question.

The point I was making is that there is zero evidence that buying Westerman prevented us from buying a half-back. Since you felt so strongly otherwise I wondered if you knew of an instance where it had. That's all.

So if neither of us knows of a half-back signing that we missed out on because of the money spent on Westerman, what makes you think that paying for him stopped us from paying for a half-back? We're not short of cash for a fee and we had some cap space. In fact we were in for Chase at one point.

That's not really answering my question though. There's no evidence to suggest that we didn't have enough money for Westerman AND a half-back, so spending the cash on Westerman had zero effect on us signing a half-back. The only impact he has is the space being taken up on the cap.

I agree with your point that signing a 13/SR wasn't exactly a priority given the balance of the squad, although it does fit in with our apparent attempt to sign any promising young player we can.

Ok, Whiting doesn't have the strength or stamina, regardless of size. No coach has ever had him in their plans for the pack, there's a reason for that.
But obviously you and a few others know better than super league coaches.

And super league coaches know everything do they....even they get things wrong.

And you know better than a super league coach as to why Whiting isnt in the pack.You can add strength and stamina you know...just think with his reading of the game,he WOULD make a very good 13 if given the chance.

Whiting is completely unproven at 13 and imo could not cope physically with the demands of playing the pack every week. Westerman is a classy player and should get better with age and more gametime. English players are the way forward and having someone like Westerman signed up for 4 years is only a positive thing. As for halves I take your point but there is no one out there of Westerman's quality (albeit in a different position) so it's not like we missed out on anyone.

But why would we even entertain the idea as long as we've got Westerman? Who's a proven SL 13.
I don't think Whiting could play in the pack. Yeamans the same size as Wilkin and JJB, but I wouldn't want him anywhere near our pack. You start adding beef to Whiting you'll slow him to a stop.

We wouldn't now. But his entire point was that if we had entertained the idea, we may not have bothered spending the money we did on Westerman, so your comment here is irrelevant.

But Whiting doesn't have the size, strength or stamina to play through the middle. Which was my point in the first place, and none of the coaches Rich has had has ever entertained the idea.

Why on earth would you question his strength or stamina? I've never seen either be an issue with him. And you're wrong about the coaches, McRae was considering him as lock but he was hardly going to oust Jason Smith was he?

In 2004 vs Salford when J.Smith got injured, Whiting started at loose man and played had a great game, and a few times that season he came off the bench and replaced Smith at lock. In 2005 he started 5 games at loose forward. In 2006 he started 3 games at lock but played there off the bench a many times. In 2008 he only played 2 games, and one was at lock and one was off the bench to lock.

Basically, every single point you raise about him is factually inaccurate, and unjustified opinion.