Quote: Chris71 "On the Red Vee rumours thread its been mentioned about a player of interest to St's but no one knows who or if its FC or KR. I wonder if its Mau with Woolf being an ex Tonga national coach and Mau having played for Tonga? Obviously its all just guess work.'" So the redvee rumours are based on: https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/league-l ... out-40821/ Which in turn is based on a RL patreon (aka behind a paywall) which said we’re also after a marquee centre from the NRL to replace Naiqama with Welsby replacing Coote at fullback (all perfectly reasonable). One of our more reliable “ITK” posters suggested it was Savelio, but suggested it was also alongside Kevin Proctor who were also linked with. We’re losing both Thompson (retirement) and Bentley (Leeds) so it’s possible we would sign two backrowers, but think it’s highly unlikely as Batchelor is starting to make more regular first team appearances and Wingfield really shone early in the season - so I can’t see us signing both. Only other position I can reasonably see us signing is prop, which would maybe suggest Sao (and I had heard earlier in the season we were interested in Satae, but obviously he has since signed a new deal). Saints over the years have been very good at keeping their cards close to their chest for new players, and so we’re just left with these snippets for speculation.

Quote: Chris71 "On the Red Vee rumours thread its been mentioned about a player of interest to St's but no one knows who or if its FC or KR. I wonder if its Mau with Woolf being an ex Tonga national coach and Mau having played for Tonga? Obviously its all just guess work.'" So the redvee rumours are based on: https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/league-l ... out-40821/ Which in turn is based on a RL patreon (aka behind a paywall) which said we’re also after a marquee centre from the NRL to replace Naiqama with Welsby replacing Coote at fullback (all perfectly reasonable). One of our more reliable “ITK” posters suggested it was Savelio, but suggested it was also alongside Kevin Proctor who were also linked with. We’re losing both Thompson (retirement) and Bentley (Leeds) so it’s possible we would sign two backrowers, but think it’s highly unlikely as Batchelor is starting to make more regular first team appearances and Wingfield really shone early in the season - so I can’t see us signing both. Only other position I can reasonably see us signing is prop, which would maybe suggest Sao (and I had heard earlier in the season we were interested in Satae, but obviously he has since signed a new deal). Saints over the years have been very good at keeping their cards close to their chest for new players, and so we’re just left with these snippets for speculation.

I'm very confident that we will keep all the players that weren't on the RFL list otherwise we would have heard a rumour about them leaving.

Just need another forward and I think we can really challenge next year.

Cant see us doing much player incoming apart from a front row which supporters and the club know is needed.
Just dont understand why the club are so quiet releasing confirmation of contract extensions as the ones involved are hardly fringe players

I think it will be one more, I wouldn't mind Pauli Pauli, could play prop our backrow and od be confident our coaching and conditioning tean could get him fit and playing ti his potential.

You’d have been better suggesting Vete from HKR if you wanted to go down that route, as, as I said, we’re looking at a centre, prop and back rower.

Will Welsby be going to full back now Coote is moving on?

Would've thought he would be a shoe in next year as a starting centre. With Coote moving it probably complicates things...

Yes almost certainly - he’s been groomed for fullback since 16 - (one of) the reasons Coote turned down a new deal is we were only willing to commit to a 1 year deal as a transition year (and HKR offered him more money and 2 years). I also personally believe it’s his best position as well.

Welsby, Simm, Dodd, Wingfield will all step up and take bigger roles in the squad next year, our recruitment should be focused on quality rather than quantity (hopefully), despite quite a large out list …

Fonua has pretty much tweeted its not true.

Guess we get to enjoy Andre for a few more years

Dont understand why we are delaying announcing any deals to be fair.

How many of your first XVII if everyone is fit are home grown as it were, you mention a fair few names that seem to be coming up through the ranks as first choice or definitely part of the players that you'd rotate with.

Hope we keep Sevelio, he has done very well this year and improved on last by a significant margin IMO.
The club will of course know this but we have to be wary about offering bigger/improved contracts just to retain the services of certain players when other clubs come calling, that way always leads to a longer term worse outcome regards how you value players salaries and what you can then afford regards your squad overall.
We had that previously, with some very big earners at the club taking a siginifcant chunk of the salary and actually didn't perform to the level expected once their contracts were signed, we paid for it with a weaker squad overall.
We can't have sentiment getting in the way of progression that's for sure.

How's Dodd progressing? from the clips I saw of him playing for the academy he looked something special.

For this year? Somewhere between 9-11; Makinson, Percival, Grace, Lomax, Walmsley (sort of, but is technically home grown due to a quirk in the rules), Roby, Lees, Knowles, Smith/Dodd (one of them makes the 17 though I’m not sure which), and maybe Wingfield or Welsby (I would play both over Joel Thompson who basically admitted in his retirement announcement his body is shot).

I would expect 11 next year (Welsby and Dodd being on the certain list effectively), assuming we make the 3 signings I believe we are, and none of them are homegrown originally (Savelio, Luke Thompson, Josh Jones etc). If we don’t, Simm at centre or Wingfield at back row will also be definite (Norman will take the prop role and he’s not homegrown).

Dodd is hard to assess at the moment, he’s being played out of position at hooker as the club are supposedly training him defensively, but he’s been really exciting in the glimpses we have had as fans. There’s been more than a few calling for him to start ahead of Fages anyway, as Fages has been in indifferent form so far this year. He’s getting his first proper game at 7 this week with Fages out injured, so should be a good assessment of him. From a training perspective all we hear about is him ripping it up, and the club have no fear in putting him straight in at 7 if Fages leaves

thanks for that, that's really impressive

Promising news...

rlhttps://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/andre-savelio-hull-fc-5626137rl