Sangare finally confirmed

Good news.

But hope there's some more to come....

Happy with this. Looked very good when I’ve seen him. Great age too. Let’s hope there’s an incoming for this season soon

Good signing for a 4th prop. Just need 2 and 3 now.

You pushing Holroyd down to fifth?

Pretty reasonable considering he cant get on the field. Wouldn't be wise to bank on him being able to be number 4 next year.

Yes. I like a 6 prop rotation and he’s not been on the field this year so why should he be higher?

Glad to see this confirmed, I like the look of him, shame we couldn't get him in for the rest of the season but totally understand why Toulouse wouldn't want him to leave

Despite his promise I'm glad its only a 2-year deal. Another problem we've had is giving 3 and 4 year deals to players who haven't delivered and then we're stuck with. If he turns out well his contract can be extended at any time.

Very pleased with this signing, he’s a big young very handy prop who’s already shown what he can do in Super League, it’s certainly a position we need to strengthen.

I lose track of the current overseas player rules but I’m presuming he won’t count on any type of overseas player quota?

As said, he's a good signing but we still need one,hopefully two props.

Hope he goes well.
We are now at 6 props for next year including Holroyd and Walters. Really hope Holroyd can play 20 games.
Unless Prior or Tetevano leave a year early I can’t see any more props coming in.

I don't think we can really classify Walters as a full fledged prop yet, although I'm sure he'll get there. Holroyd, first through persistent injury and latterly through stupidity, hasn't yet played 30 SL games. Would anybody be surprised if he picked up a pre season injury that kept him out for 10 weeks? For those reasons I think we still need another prop, and a good one too. Maybe then when Prior and Tetevano"s time is up we'll only need one.

Numbers are part of it but we don't have a top dog kind of prop who can lead the pack. Sangare adds beef and will certainly improve our grunt but there's no real stand out. Hopefully that will come as well...

I share your reservations about the 2 young ones but we seem now to be bringing walters on as a prop and it’s all opinions but for mine another good prop means we are spending too much cap at that position and we need a few other areas strengthening. Walters would be prop 7 but he needs some games to develop to see if he can make it there. Donaldson is not a prop but he could be prop 8 in emergencies or smith.
I dare not think about a utility/middle to replace Thompson.

Agree with this, we need Tetevano to step up and significantly improve from what we’ve seen from him so far, but If he doesn’t we’re stuck with him until his contract is up. I highly doubt we’ll bring in another unless one of our top 3 props leave. We’ve got.

Oledzki
Tetevano
Prior
Sangare
Holroyd
Walters

Oledzki is a great prop, but needs more help.
Tetevano is shocking, nothing like the player we were expecting.
Prior has been a good addition but its 2 years too long.
Sangare will be a good addition he's a big unit and a great age.
Holroyd has a terrible injury record, a big dumb suspension, but could turn out really well if he can stay on the field.
Walters is taking his first steps as a prop, so needs a lot of time and work. I'm not sure about his mentality for the front row.

As you can see, we have 1 great option (Oledzki), 1 good addition (Sangare), 2 gambles (Holroyd and Walters) and 2 that really should be leaving.

Spot on.

For reasons of previous form, injury, indiscipline and inexperience I don't the above list is good enough to close the gap on the best teams. Next year Wigan will have Mago, Singleton, Byrne, Harvard, Cooper, Ellis and possibly also Partington. Wire will have Kasiano, Vaughan, Dudson, Philbin, Bullock, Harrison and the big lad they have just signed from Wests. Saints will continue to have the best three props in the SL in Walmsley, Lees and Passi, with a strong supporting cast. If we don't attempt to keep up with best we'll continue to get smashed down the middle, and continue to lose more than we win.

I agree we are still weaker. The key is Zane playing like a £200k forward not a £50k one or exiting.
We could do with a Dale Finucane type, I know he is too expensive. A big tough leader who could play at 13 and in effect play like a 3rd prop when he’s on. Let Smith do the ball playing when he comes on.

Yep, against certain teams a 3rd starting prop with Smith coming off the bench is definitely the way to go. Such a shame because Tetavano initially looked like he could give us that. What an absolute disaster it's been for both us and him. I'd like to think there will be a happy ending for both parties but it does seem unlikely.

I agree to an extent but with Tetevano being a marquee player taking up £150k on the cap, Mik and Prior also being on decent above SL average wages, Sangare and Holroyd probably a bit below SL average wage, I don’t see how we can justify using more of our salary cap on another prop. We only have 2M or whatever the figure is to spend.

Unfortunately I don’t see another Prop coming in unless someone leaves, and there’s 2 I’d like to leave at the end of this season, although it’s unlikely.

Fair enough. I respect your opinion even if I don't share it on this occasion. Out of interest which position would you choose to strengthen, and who would the player be?

I’m presuming/think Thompson, Mustapha, Briscoe, Dwyer will leave and possibly Walker too. We’ve already seen Broadbent and Mellor leave. That’s going to leave us short in the back row and centre moving forward and that’s where I think we need to strengthen next.

As things stand we have the below, Sutcliffe is ok as a squad utility cover player but isn’t good enough to be 1st choice 17 imo. A couple of injuries in the 2nd row and were seriously weak there.

Centres
Newman, Sutcliffe
2nd row
Martin, Bentley, Gannon, Donaldson
Loose Forward
Smith, O’Connor

It all depends who and what salary cap space is available, but I’d like us to sign an NRL based centre to take Thompson’s overseas quota space and a Super League based back rower to add some depth there.