Surely you want your leaders to be 1st choice players though? He's a journeyman at best, all we can hope for is that he has come cheap. Let's hope the club still have a few aces up their sleeve.

I’m with most posters so far I think. He’ll be a squad player and maybe captain of the reserves?

Perhaps, one to forget for most I would imagine but I'm assuming it's no coincidence that he was announced this week for that reason - I just wouldn't have timed it for same day Fax signed OB!

Hopefully there is a couple of exciting ones to come.

Spot on re timing, all big retentions and marquee signings get announced after seasons complete ands it’s A slow news week and tickets need a push. Pound for pound he’ll be good value, covers positions and a squad man. People have reacted like he is the big 2024 announcement.

Remember the Robbie Paul saying ‘ you need piano players and piano pushers’. This kind of signing hopefully means the money is being pushed into ‘marquee’ names later on.

Unfortunately we haven’t got the budget for two quality players for each position so there are cases where sacrifices have to be made with an unglamorous signing to help pad out the squad

Honestly can't see the thinking in this at all, he just doesn't fit anywhere. We already give away for too many penalties but have just got to the stage where we knuckle down when things are going against us and not do anything silly.

Yeah he seems a decent bloke and he may bleed red, amber and black but he was the one to end up losing it and giving the penalty away?

Credit Card's gone back in the pocket for now as that's a statement of intent. Not the statement we want but a statement nonetheless

Still plenty of time to go before we can make a judgement on the 2024 squad.

A'O'B isn't all that much improvement anyway, his distribution was poor when he was here 1st time around and it hasn't improved. Noble knows what he's doing. Slow, poor vision and poor distribution. His good points are he is tenacious and gets stuck in, but then again that's the same with S Hallas but probably costs half the price. I'm underwhelmed as well, but at least we haven't gone all out for somebody that isn't much better than the player we have signed. Segayaro is the man we need to chase. He's better than both.

Its like you actually have AOB mixed up with another player the way you have described him.

TBH most of us on here would've been quite pleased to have signed AOB but I'm hoping we get someone as good or better. We need good quality hooker and a prop to replace Rogers at the very least.

Maybe unlikely with Lilley and Flannagan already signed up? If Patton moving on though as rumoured that could free up some money to bring in some quality. I do hear that Keyes may be the fall guy if the Fax deal for Widdop goes through so he would be a good signing wherever he went. Just a rumor that at the moment but gathering pace.

George Flanagan is nowhere near a first team hooker.
Reserve grade at best,.
I'd look to try bring Wildie back, he can play and it's likely there's a lot going from Fev.
Yes we need 1 or 2 big mean props.
Dorro has been quite a pleasant surprise now he's settled in.

I would agree but Lilley won't be on pennies so would it make sense for you to carry 3 hookers when that money could be better spent elsewhere? Quality in the hooker position won't come cheap.

That's why I said Wildie, can play 6, 7 or 9 and use the Money Patton isn't on because his negative a$$ isn't there anymore.
Don't you try have us going with Flannagan as a starting 9 it gives all the other teams including Fax a massive advantage..lol

I think the plan is for Flanagan snr to be only providing cover especially when you consider his age. Lilley is great at dummy half but if he's there we need a scrum half to partner Gaskell. Someone like Wildie would be ideal given his versatility. Also given Gaskell's injury record we're going to need some versatility in the squad.

Patton has left the building.

Thank Christ we do need a kicker though Lilley is okay but not the best maybe Keyes, Wildie and a couple of props would be a good shout

Could be a few Fev players available after yesterday's result. On their forum, they're saying some playings were on a £100k!!

For me I'd be looking at a Scrum half, so Lilley can go in at Hooker. Plus a back up Hooker to Lilley (Please god don't let us be thinking Hallas is one of our two main Hookers)

As above poster said we need a goal-kicker too as Lilley isn't consistent enough.

Greg--surely fax aren't looking at letting Keyes go for Widdop as that would be a crazy decision. Even if Keyes stays, O'Brien and Widdop is some wage in an area you're already strong in IMHO

My thoughts entirely, I think a move for Widdop would be madness when its so obvious that we need improvements elsewhere and its unlikely he would come cheap and like you say Bull Mania, we are already pretty strong there. I just can't see Widdop coming and us keeping our current 1/6/7 due to money.

Keyes is a class act, just very injury prone.
You can more or less guarantee he will not be playing 25% of the time.

So glad to have got rid of poison Patton, one of the root causes of our $hit 2022 campaign.
The season started to come good after he'd done one.

Alex sutcliffe might be with a shout strength in depth?

Does specific recruitment matter if we're not full-time? The part-time payer pool is competent and we can grab our fair share of good players, but they're not exceptional players in the context of this level. It seems to me at least that the next logical step for us as a club, in terms of visible progress is to retain our academy prospects and allow them and the wider squad to go full-time, and compete at the right end of the championship next year pre-grading.

Cue all the cloth cutting responses

A lot of the players we have may not have the want or inclination to go full time gill for instance because he has a good job outside of the sport

That's a fair point but if by some sort of miracle we had beat Tolouse, then A.N Other to get promotion we wouldn't have had a team so would as the newly promoted team nearly always done sign then majority of Wakefields squad which wern't good enough to stay up...

Hate to say it but Degsy did it right on the third attempt, created a mid table SL team playing in the championship so when promotion came they hit the ground running.

Can't see our current culture, of scrimping and employing volunteers (god bless them) allowing this..
Hence dare I say it we need new big money investor or backer.
Once we are up we hopefully will be able to entice the old fans back, something Leigh can't. why would you support Leigh when your from Wigan?
Had the same convo about FEV this morning, even in SL who would wake up one morning and think I fancy starting supporting Featherstone?

Thats meant to say big money investor or new owner....which as it happens Wakefield now do,

For me the issue when full time we attracted show ponies like the drivel we had when first relegated.

Messing about expecting the badge to carry them to victory whilst routinely getting beaten by the players they looked down on.

To go full time needs serious SL type budget with player who you can assure will be retained if you go up.

I can't see Niggle and co attracting that kind of money so would we prefer a top end part-time team like we have or highly paid journeymen stealing a living.

And I suppse you have to have that budget for several years incase you do a Fev.....

That sounds harsh and and I never thought I'd say it but as an example - Patten

What Leigh did was once in a lifetime sort of stuff where the stars align perfectly. People forget that by the time the season started they didn't have much of a squad assembled, losing early doors to Fev, then a number of players became available for different reasons and with SL teams already up to their quota limits and the Championship having a loophole it all worked out perfectly for them. If a team in our division had that sort of money now it would still be a struggle to put together a team capable of staying up simply because of the lack of player availability.