Watkins gets a lot of unfair stick IMO. His defensive load is far higher than it should be, and often involves him tackling big forwards well away from where he should be defending. Then in attack he gets no early ball and gets slated for not looking for it when he's probably still gassed from making tackles he shouldn't have to. That's not to say he's in anything like form but he's playing a role a class runner should never be asked to do.

Segeyaro is available from now and next season onwards, he's one player I would be very happy for us to sign. Leeds need a good hooker, I hope they don't go all out for Farah as he's much older.

Segeyaro is quite simply not the player he was in 2014. He dropped off a bit last year and now he's effectively been dumped by the Panthers. I'm not sure if he'd add much other than the fact he's not 'injured', especially if it meant he had to be signed for 3 years or so. The article I read about him said Leeds are still after Farah. Now that would mean marquee signing and wages.

Farah would be perfect for us imo. He is the leader type player with an all round hooking game. at 33 next year we would probably only get a couple of good seasons from him but we need someone to come in a steady the ship in that role, and there won't be many if anyone else available with anything close to his reputation.

Gale has signed a contract extension - to be announced soon (possibly Monday). Will cost you a lot more to get him now.

Like I said....decent player looks at his options. He sees what he has now and the speculated apparent interest from a rival club....a club languishing at rock bottom of the SL with no guarantee of SL footie next season. Which would you choose?



Arrogant to assume otherwise really

And herein also lies one of the problems of the salary cap - it's fairly unusual for players to move.
Say Gale is currently on 80k and his new contract at Cas is 100k. That's only 20k extra Cas need to account for under the salary cap. Any other club would need to find the whole 100k.

Depends who they get rid of to accommodate him.

Gale has signed a five year deal with Cas. Still intrigued to hear the news that will shock the world of rugby. Also going around Twitter yesterday was Aussie papers reporting Leeds have offered farah a 2/3 year deal.

To add to that I'm pretty disappointed we didn't get gale, I thought he'd be a perfect fit for us. But can't blame him

I hope we sign Farah. he is a leader and a hooker, two key boxes ticked on our priority list.

He will come if G.H dangles a Liverpool season ticket in front of him...a big fan apparently.

They could save £20k on Lilley.

he looks like the second coming of graham holroyd.

Perfect fit for us yes, but obviously not for him. As said elsewhere why would a decent player want to join a struggling bottom dweller SL club that has no guarantee of future SL status never mind the chance to win silverware within his career? It really is arrogant of some to think otherwise.
Leeds 2016 onwards (2015 is history) has to show it is a club going places: no sign of that is there?. The time to sign up players for 2017 is now and it aint looking good for attracting them really, is it?

We are dependent on the present set up lifting us out of this shiite to hopefully make us a better proposition for decent players to be brought in for 2018.

He isn't perfect for us at all. He is an improvement on what we currently have. He is a very good player, a player who with the other options around should be close to playing for his country, but perfect for us? There is much better out there, and it is much better that Leeds need going forward. We need someone with a lot more facets to his game whilst Lilley develops his own game.

Like I say, it would have been nice, but it is not disastrous we don't get him, unless we stick with what we have.

It's brilliant that people think we should be spending big to bring back a half we had at a young age who wasn't great and bumbles around the lower leagues and bottom of SL until he was 24 or so and to accommodate him we should dump a young half who is better than Gale was at his age.

Chill out mate- that's why I said "can't blame him". I thought it would be obvious I'm referencing our current position and set up. I too think he'd be daft to sign for us. Doesn't mean I'm not disappointed some how it didn't happen. I don't class this as arrogance.

Did I specifically state you were arrogant? If you look at other threads you will gain a better idea of who it might be more aimed at. It IS disappointing, but the club looks a shambles at the moment and we will be very lucky to sign anybody up of any improvement over what we have for 2017. Got to hope the club does have a bloody plan rather than an apparent stubborn stupid let's just carry on and see what happens attitude. I can only think they do indeed intend to ensure all are fit and able to push us through the middle 8's and until then we can expect more shiite. It still seems to be too much of a gamble IMO ...and it is certainly unfair on the paying spectators having to endure more drivel and embarressment.

I wonder if we are going for another record: worst ever negative points difference in the whole history of SL

Not specifically but by quoting my post you can see how it looked like that's what you were implying. No worries though, I completely agree. The risk of relegation is a huge problem in terms of recruitment. And what's worrying is four five weeks ago I felt like we weren't far from a few wins but since was is the Huddesfield game (?) we can't string a decent patch together for longer than 15 mins and it's getting worse. I can see us getting trampled tonight.

I don't honestly recall quite how good of a half Gale was whilst at Leeds but what has to be taken into consideration here is that when he was pushing through Sinfield, Mcguire and Burrow were in their pomp and opportunities were going to be slim no matter what your potential back then all three were internationals. Lilley is fortunate that there are plenty of chances for him to stake a claim right now, but that's how it goes.

Gale had to take a step back and learn his trade , which he has done.Yes he may have been nearly mid twenties when he started to flourish but he is probably a better player for it. I'm not for one minute suggesting dump Lilley, just we need to realise why Gale is where he is and why he never made it with us. it should be irrelevant in our considerations to signing him.

Ryan Bailey was better than Jamie Peacock at a young age. Not that I agree with your assertion about Gale/Lilley relative merits. Both had/have decent rugby brains & were/are decent kickers. Lilley is nothing more yet.

My point wasnot really the relative merits of Lilley and Gale, more that when we lost Gale he wasn't a very good player and took a few years to develop into a decent player a few years we aren't giving to Lilley. Objectively Lilley is far ahead of Gale in terms of relative development, Gale was 3 years older than Lilley when making his SL debut. That fans are wanting to spend big on Gale and give up on Lilley is nuts.

I am one of the arrogant ones. Although I am far from that to be fair, nearer self loathing on the scale!!!
I still stand by it though. We are having a bad year hopefully just the one. But our club is still one of the big 4 clubs in terms of infer structure stadia crowds and turning profits.

For me it shows gale doesn't have ambition. I am probably gonna get egg on my face here but he has zero chance of winning super league at cas. Big fish in a small pond.
We were spoilt these last 10 years. Hopefully we can turn it round we have the resources to.

I can only go by what I see on this forum....but I certainly would never have considered you to be one of "arrogant" ones !!! I hope you're right Ferdy and this is indeed just the one bad year, but previous status and 'big club infrastructure' is no guarantee of indefinite success in the Premier Leagues whether it be Footie or RL...and indeed the 'minnows' can equally rise to take their place. Neither is maybe likely, but increasingly possible under the present salary cap... exacerbated by an apparent stubborn refusal to acknowledge we have a fast growing (hopefully not irreversable) problem.