Think John Kear has been down a few times to se Gareth as a possible replacement for the allegedly outboud Jamie Rooney for 2010.

Seems a good prospect and the partnership of Burrow and Maguire cant last forever so if i had a fiver to put on it i'd say he would be staying with you, Bluey knows a good player when he sees one.

I said sport was cyclical - I never said that teams "don't spend long" at the top.

I also said that the football analogy is skewed by the massive gulf in spending power between the top 4 and the rest, which is disproportionately larger than in just about any other sport in the world.

Still, if you want to persist in using it as a yardstick there's nothing I can do to stop you.

More likely to have gone something like this:

Press Officer: "Just doing a press release on Keith, can you confirm he's 33 and Ryan Hall's got 14 tries."

Leeds Rugby Statto: " no that's wrong take one off"

Press Officer (to himself) " OK that must be 32 and 14 tries then"

Happy to report [url=http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/09/05/22/RUGBYL_Leeds.htmlnot everyone[/url is this sloppy.

From what I can quickly cobble together are the relative losses/gains of major players at the end of each season

2004: (4 out, 1 in) -> Lost Both finals
Losses:
Adamson
Furner
Cummins
Feather

Gains:
Ellis

2005: (6 out, 3 in) -> Poor season
Loss:
Dunneman
McDermott
Calderwood
Bai
Ward
McDonald

Gains:
Donald
Millard
Peacock
O'Neill (excluded)
McAvoy (excluded)

2006: (out 3, in 4) -> Won Title
Losses:
Poching
Walker
Mathers

Gains:
Toopi
Thackray
Webb
Leuluai

2007: (1 out, 0 in) -> Won Title
Losses:
Thackray

2008: (4 out, 1 in) -> ??
Losses:
Toopi
Scruton
Tansey
Ellis

Gains:
Buderus

For me the recruitment this year most closely resembles that of 2006. However, part of the drop was also due to the large turnover from 2004 squad. For me though the thing about 2006 is that poor as it was, with some wise recruitment for the next year, and a couple of the more junior members of the squad stepping up, we won the title. To me that signifies that it is often worth waiting to get the right player. A fair few of the players signed here, were not a sucess, and lasted little over a year.

cant see mcbanana taking this kind of gamble considering his precarious position at the moment..will have to bring in a big name aussie i would guess