So I had a major update from my source tonight as I asked over the weekend was there any update with recruitment after the Sivo deal was announced I asked about are we looking to bring in another forward.

Ian Blease has reportedly enquired about singing John Bateman for the 2025 season.

Now I was told that Blease contacted West Tigers about a season long loan for 2025 with West's contributing towards his wages and if Bateman was to be a success in 2025 we would look at taking him on permanently in 2026. He's wanting to try meet with Bateman now he's in the country playing for England so that could happen in next couple of weeks.


It's been quite public that West Tigers are looking to offload Bateman after apparently falling out with their head coach Benji Marshall. So I could see West being interested if their isn't a mass amount of clubs chasing Bateman.

I was also told the club is very happy with the recruitment ahead of next season and are only looking at 1 more signing if the right deal came about so if this Bateman deal happened we wouldn't be bringing in another forward/ signing such as Liam Byrne etc.


If the Bateman deal happens I can however see this that he'd get the 11 shirt, Mcdonnell would get 12 and then Bentley would move to 16 and act as middle/ back row interchange like he was playing under Arthur at the end of last season. Having a rotation of Bateman/ Mcdonnell/ Bentley & Gannon creates healthy competition between them all.
My only slight concern would be that the 4 players I've named above are all in the same mold smaller back rowers with a high work rate it does lack a bit of punch for me but we did ok with JJB & Ablett as our back rowers for nearly a decade and they we're workman like backrowers.

Overall if this happened I don't think it's bad business and smart business as well from Blease as it would only be a loan and we wouldn't be stuck with Bateman if he had a poor season and didn't perform like we would if we bought him from Wests.

Mik is set to sign a contract extension, apparently

Good, best Prop we have produced in years has decided to remain with the club. Now time to take his game up a level under a much better coach than he has been used to for most if not all of his career so far.

Yup. Big year needed from all the props this year I think. Mik has been steady for the most part,Holroyd has been allover the place or injured and Lisone just hasn't done enough. Hoping Palasia and Jenkins along with a fit/ full preseason for the other three will make a big difference. If Miller/Hall/Handley can keep making the ground early on to help out and Newman / Sivo adding more strike it might finally be back to the play offs. Still worried about Frawley/7 our kicking game and leadership hasn't really changed and was very sub par at points in the last few years. At least we have Connor as a back up. Sinfield should be on a long loan with recall from game 1.

[quote="batleyrhino":ffeigcsl]Good, best Prop we have produced in years has decided to remain with the club. Now time to take his game up a level under a much better coach than he has been used to for most if not all of his career so far.[/quote:ffeigcsl] Great news. The rest of the out of contract players, for differing reasons, are harder to make a retain/let go decision on. I do feel that Frawley and Lisone would both have to play out of their respective skins in order to make a case for staying given the shortage of quota spots. Here's hoping both Holroyd and Gannon come back firing on all cylinders and make it an easy decision to make.

[quote="ArthurClues":1r8ss5i3]Great news. The rest of the out of contract players, for differing reasons, are harder to make a retain/let go decision on. I do feel that Frawley and Lisone would both have to play out of their respective skins in order to make a case for staying given the shortage of quota spots. Here's hoping both Holroyd and Gannon come back firing on all cylinders and make it an easy decision to make.[/quote:1r8ss5i3] Yep, exactly what I think too...