Trent Merrin?

I’m firmly of the opinion we’d have been relegated without him. He played in one of the most awful packs we’ve put out and almost single handedly carried them.

Agree.

Showing my age.....Sam Backo

Tetevano's up there, bang average but paid like a super star, Thank god its his last year.

But is it?????? Every time Rohan mentions him he goes out of his way to praise him. It's going to be very interesting to see what they do with the overseas spots this year, especially if the likes of Tetavano are prepared to take substantially reduced contracts. For the record I hope he does go, but I'm not 100% sure he will.

Falloon, Mullins, Lolohea, Eastwood and Mark O'Neill would all be up there. Extra man Paul Bell.

Falloon and Lolohea would be tops because they were signed into absolutely key positions and were awful. You can get away with a centre being a bit meh, but not supposedly your star halfback and hooker. I'm glad Lolohea has turned it around, but turning up at Leeds in the state he was physically was a disgrace for a pro sportsman. Letting him play while looking like he could just about play half a game for a pub football team was a mark of a weak coach and a team that had utterly lost its way.

Tetevano would probably be OK if he's on a vastly reduced wage. Smith certainly seems to like his attitude in training etc as a good influence round the club, but at some stage he has to transfer that to the field or its all a bit pointless. It could all just be about getting the best out of him for one year - having seen what happened this off season I've no doubt he'll get flicked if he doesn't pick up a fair bit.

I think we need to be clearer on criteria here. There's a big difference between a big name on big money (e.g. Brett Mullins), an NRL struggler who doesn't live up to expectations in SL (e.g. Lolohea at Leeds), an NRL reserve-grader who doesn't cut it (Achurch, Vickery), and a potentially decent player who was just unlucky with injuries (Paul Bell).

In SL, while we've had plenty come over from the NRL who haven't set SL on fire, I think we've been lucky to avoid some of the outright howlers of big money signings that other SL clubs have punted for, e.g. Mark Carroll, Matt Orford, Gareth Widdop, Chris Sandow, and pretty much everyone Warrington have thrown big contracts at in the last 15 years.

While it is fair to say that we wanted to see more from the likes of Hurrell, Merrin, Toopi, Galloway etc, all of them gave us solid service in their own way.

Its his last year on his mega contract either way, really hope we dont retain him, but if we do, it would be easier to stomach if he's on a contract that reflects his performance.

If you're on the big money you have to play like it.

If you were to ask someone, who wasn't aware, who the Rhinos prop on big money was you'd get the answer Oledzki

Absolutely. It's just that Rohan, and Agar before him, really talk Tetevano up.

Jarrod O'connor speaks highly of him too

Which is nice.

But we didn't sign him to be just spoken highly of unfortunately

He has failed as a signing on such an enormous scale only a cup or GF win could change that

There'd be a lot of terrible overseas signings if the they were judged on what trophies they'd won...

Having re-watched the Wigan play-off, there's a quality moment from Tetevano in which he puts a belter of a legal tackle on Smithies, which stopped Wigan in a crucial position. IIRC he put on a similarly legal hit in the GF.

I thought Tetevano improved markedly since the large ban he received after clothes-lining Hurrell. There's a good chance he will redeem himself further in 2023. It may be more of a Clinton Toopi style redemption (especially if he sticks with the legal hard tackles), but I'd take that in a more competitive pack.

I think he will find a club in the NRL now that their cap has increased by 25%.He would have to improve loads to be offered a decent contract.I would be looking at Matty English to replace Tet.

We might see more English lads leave, but there will still be a pipeline of Aussies and Kiwis coming the other way, as whenever a raise in the cap happens it gets applied across the board - everyone gets a raise. Its the problem with the idea of just raising our own cap without working out how to make it work for the game and not just existing players. Not saying our players don't deserve more, but its quite possible increasing the cap could cause more financial problems for the game as a whole without solving any fundamental issues.

Leeds worst ever overseas signing was John Gallagher. Dreadful and costly.

Can't agree with this. He was actually doing great till he got spear tackled at St Helens, after that was never the same

He was never great. He had some good moments but he was nowhere near the quality Leeds expected. Of All Black converts around the same time Botica was a far better player for Wigan and Matthew Ridge was a much better fullback.

Knock on, head and feed to Saints. Shocking refereeing.

Gallagher went to the wrong club - he may have been better going somewhere else where there was less pressure and he wasn't going to be hated by the club captain. He ended up playing behind a pack that at that time was lacking in toughness so was often faced with huge rampaging forwards bearing down (something he never had when playing for the all blacks). Leeds threw a lot of money away on Gallagher (did the same with David Young).

Think two possible candidates for bad overseas signings were Clyde and Mullins. One was crocked and the other had off field issues.

Gallagher didn't look that good even when we played poor teams. The spear tackle undoubtedly finished him, but he never showed much to suggest he would have done better elsewhere. He could run a great line in attack but he wasn't that quick and never looked a quality defender.

He and Young were examples of signing RU players without actually looking at them as players rather than names. For all his faults Laughton could spot RU players - Offiah, Tait, Devereux, Davies, Koloto etc at Widnes and Innes and Fallon at Leeds. He went for Innes precisely because he said he looked like a league player playing union.

Suspect Gallagher and Young were Director signings rather than players David Ward wanted.