[fc rumour mode enabled] we're getting Sam Tomkins!!!!

Massive loss for you lot.

What a shame

Depends. How much cash and which player? Everyone has their price, even Rangi Chase it would seem.

The money will help but the player won't be as good a prospect as Taylor, surely?

Obviously not , its pretty depressing that we have let our two best young forwards go this year, two forwards who we could have built a pack around for many years to come but we are again paying for the dreadful mistakes of previous years.

Scotts disillusionment with Rovers started a couple of years ago in the Morgan era when we messed him around and found any excuse not to play him so as not to trigger payment clauses and stuff and generally didn't look after him as a top class young player should be.

When you unearth a jewel, and Taylor is just that , then you should make him feel important and that he has a secure future not look to get him at the cheapest possible price because he is a local and you need the money to pay silly money to players no longer wanted in the NRL...a harsh lesson learnt a few years too late.

Lets hope Green or someone else can step in but there is a reason Taylor is classed as one of the best few young forwards in the competition and has been heavily in demand. Thought i had seen the end of this with Wilkin , i never thought after our promotion and the seasons upto 09 that we would become a nursery for the top dogs, we should be well on our way to becoming a top dog again ourselves. Farcical mis-management at all levels.

It will be, but we've had a while to get used to it. The fear is we fall into the Cas trap.

Learn the lessons and move on.

Tuson would be a decent enough signing, but he was effectively ooc anyway iirc, so hopefully it'll be a good fee.

Wigan took the 1 year option o nTusons contract so he wasnt out of contract until next year

It's a harsh lesson. You've lost 2 of (arguably) the best young forwards in Super League - possibly Taylor could be NRL material in a year or so.

As "Guardian" says, you could have built a pack around them for years.

Watts has been excellent for us and will improve under Ellis and O'Meley I'll wager.

Watts represented a different type of lesson, and it could easily go either way with him at Hull, but losing two players we hoped to build a pack around is a blow no doubt.

But these things happen, we need to deal with it, but not dwell on it.

It's Catch-22 to an extent - you can't retain your best unless you're challenging and you can't challenge unless you retain your best.
Now we're more established in SL we need to get a better value-to-spend ratio - relative to the rest of the league at least. A different type of challenge to what we've faced so far - it would have been better to face it with Taylor, but if he goes to Wigan I can't blame him.
Strange, but you almost hope now that the players you produce aren't [itoo[/i good - it'd be sort of better for Hull if Tom Briscoe wasn't quite good enough to interest NRL teams, for example. Half a dozen decent squad players coming through the ranks probably offer more than one potential superstar in some respects.
It was 10 years between Wilkin and Taylor, now we're in SL and our system is starting to bear fruit we'll hopefully see one like them every couple of years and manage to keep the odd one.

unless your a top club winning things on a regular basis theres always a chance you will lose your best players i think we would have still lost taylor regardless of our money problems

NH was clear earlier in the year that ST was part of our long term plans and the club wanted him to agree a new deal, so I don't think it is a sale born of economic necessity. We apparently just weren't in his, which is his choice.
But if he isn't going to be part of that long-term future, then selling now makes sense. Everybody gets to move on sooner and we get some cash.

Can we get rid of this waster asap?

Tuson is a very solid player, he'll do well for you. Gives 100% every game, runs good lines and tackles everything. If he was a little bigger he'd be a super star.

It's a shame that you've not been able to keep hold of Taylor though.