I’d enquire about Connor Jones

With Nobby on the recruitment panel you’d think it would be an area we would be looking at closely. What has happened with Lawford, is he staying and is he ready to play at scrum half and Lilley back to 9? I’d also take Wildie back if Segayaro isn’t an option.

Some reasonable budget must have been released by likes of Patton, Baitieri, Walker, Segayaro departing, so you’d hope we might have at least 2 or 3 quality players lined up.

One of the player sponsors said he stopped training with the club a month or so ago and will be going to Swinton.

Waste of talent as he's brilliant on his day. I think the club and departing players are hinting at the official announcement being imminent with the comments about the team spirit and work ethic in the last weeks of the season

Not sure how much you can blame one player but there has been a noticeable improvement in "attitude" since Patton stopped being picked. Whether that's the reason I don't know but the side that won away in London and Sheffield is very different to that which got beaten twice by Barrow.

I imagine Patton was on a fair amount given he's in his prime and was a SL grand finalist.

Frustrating player Patton. But fact he's gone from grand final, to Salford, to Bradford and now to Swinton probably says a lot.

He has the talent but not the temperament for a good HB. He'd do a superb try assist, but instead of backing that up with 5 good kicks to the corner, he'd almost think that was his work done for the day. Or when the game was going against us, instead of putting in some pressure building kicks, he'd try smash someone.

I don’t think Patton is a disruptive person, if that is what we are saying. I can’t claim to know him but I spoke with him a couple of times and he seemed a nice guy. I think he just marches to the beat of a different drum, and that was difficult for a temporary coaching team, operating on a match by match basis, to manage.
Anyway, we did better when he wasn’t playing, and so we move on.
Best wishes to him wherever his next chapter takes him.

If you had the pick of Fev squad, Connor Jones and James Lockwood would be very high on my list of targets.

Reading their forum sounds like Jones could be staying. Alhough also mentions that the squad has been asked to take pay cuts (Is that the third time this has happened. Sure it happened when they didn't make the original middle 8s and another time when they didn't make the play-offs and only had 14 players for the last game)

I would go for jimmy Thompson and Charlie stone

Not to mention Keith Bridges as well.

Deryck Fox could move us around the park too. And that Newlove looks a real prospect.

Reckon their young coach by the name of Peter Fox might also be worth a look.

Things seem to have gone very quiet on the new signings/retention front. The Reece Lynne signing seems to have hit a snag.
I thought something would have been announced before the early bird deadline to gee people up a bit.

Wouldn't worry too much. We signed Lawrence, Thompson, Walker from Middle of November last year. The retentions have been great but we do have some gaps in the squad that need replacing with Baitieri, Segeyaro, Rogers departing and only Hallas & Oakes as the new faces. Looks like Appo maybe leaving too judging by his social media post.

Wouldn’t read too much into Appos post I’ve heard that is underway with png there’s certain timings and legal hoops that have to be jumped through and he liked every fan post asking if he was staying

I think everyone is holding their horses until the IMG gradings are out and the whole situation is a bit clearer hopefully.

Appo has resigned for minimum of 12 months

Great signing!!!

The wording on the announcement is a little strange though... signed for a "minimum 12 months".

Why not just say signed for 1yr with option for a further X yrs???

Great news! Appo is just what we need to change the momentum of a game in our favour. Please Kev now try to persuade Segeyaro to stay.

Great news that Appo has taken up the option to stay another year.

Fantastic news!

I assume the 2nd year option will be SL only. Which obviously adds an extra target to hit to trigger the option.

I think Appo could really go up another level next year. Missed pre-season with us. Came over to a completely different country without his family. Yet still ended the season as our fourth highest try scorer and the second half of the year was outstanding IMO.

His family are over here now, he's settled, he'll only just theme 25, think he could cause some damage next year.

Coaching recruitment news:

Lee Greenwood has signed a new contract to remain at the club as Eamon O’Carroll’s Assistant Coach for 2024.

I think he did well for us last season and I'm glad he's sticking around.