Spot on. I'd have played Hall, Langley, Crossley or one of the Burgess twins before Sculthorpe.

If it was a 1 year deal because there was absolutley nobody else available then that would have been easier to accept, but a 2 year deal and the fact that we have obviously outbid 2 other clubs just disappoints me. We can't even aim higher than Sculthorpe ?

It's not a good signing.

He's 30, injury prone and unfit.

He can make good yards in short concentrated bursts and produce thge odd lauititi pass but he'll also make mistakes and give penalties away.

He's not going to tangibly improve your team, he's just another player in the squad.

Honestly your team has been absolutly decimated since 05/06.

You've leaked star quality faster than blood flows from a main artery and all you ever do is sign wakefield rejects.

When they are ready I'm sure we'll play any of the young props coming through (Crossley/Burgess'sssss) Point is they are judged by the club at the moment as not ready for February 2010, so we needed some experience at prop so we dont get rolled over and the young lads thrown in too early with teir development put back accordingly.

I would hope that by the end of next season at least 1 hopefully 2 of our junior products have had game time at prop, but there is no point putting them in for the sake of it when they are not ready.

IF the much denied Walker deal doesn't materialise then I think we'll be in very deep doo doo next season.

This is another signing that fails to get my juices going, but it could work out ok if he is well coached. As the Hudds chaps have mentioned, he looked good at their place after an unsettled period at Wakey.

You've got to love contrasting the last quote in the T&A article with the comments that follow though. Sculthorpe's sure got his work cut out to convert the doubters!

What difference is Walker going to make to the current shower? We need a quality player taking up our last quota spot or 10th/11th spot is ours.

Name that player

I was amused by this on the BBC site:



I think they're mistaking Danny, with Paul of 8 years ago

Exactly.

Thackray??
King??
Feather??
Boyle??
G Horne??

...no, wait, I know, its Moi Moi or Hayne...yes, thats the answer, I'll just wait for them to rock up at Odsal top and all will be fine.

The Eternal Optimist is someone that always aims for the top and once that is unattainable they aim for the next best on so on always confident that the best outcome can be sought by always making the best of a situation.

First I thought we'd keep Burgess, then I thought we'd replace him with Moi Moi, then I thought we'd replace him with Fielden, then I thought we'd replace him with Richard Moore and now we have replaced him with Danny Sculthorpe. It could be worse at least we are getting to a situation where we are able to name a 25 man squad for next season.

I didn't say world class, and I said taking up our last quota spot.

Just for the record, I'd have taken Thackray, Feather or King over Svulthorpe.

He was talking about a quota player - and it'll be a back - no doubt Walker.

The fact that other SL clubs were after him shows the lack of talent around in SL.

It also shows what a c0ck up it was to allow a player like Peacock to leave. Despite the story that he wanted to play for his home-city club I do feel that if we'd made him a decent offer he wouldn't have needed to move.

We must do our best to hang onto our home grown products that come good.

Peacock wanted a better deal but the club said they didn't have neough money. Peacock was happy with that but then you went out and spent mega bucks on harris.

Peacock and many others felt let down by this and decided to leave.

That's from his autobiography.

peacock would have stayed had he not been shafted by caisley. came from someone very close to JP

We handled it badly and we lost a champion player - no doubt about it.

I think he said as much in his book. If he'd been paid what he was worth, then he'd never have given up playing at the successful bulls.

That side of 2003-2005 was awesome, and with the exception of deacon is all but gone.

Leeds have kept their core together for that whole time, whilst allowing others to leave for whatever reason. Saints have had a similar approach.

best hope for bulls long term is for a couple of the average journeymen to get injured, and allow some youngsters a chance.

the comparison here is easy to make. Both Huntley and Sculthorpe have had an unhappy time at Wakefield.

Excellent post IMO and quite similar to some conversations I have had today. I expect McNamara was looking for a hardened SL Prop as a bit of an insurance policy on Crossley/Burgess. If Crossley is to make it to SL then next season has to be it, however it would have been a massive gamble to have him as our 4th/5th choice Prop. With Sculthorpe we get a pretty average Prop but someone who is proven at SL level.

With the quota places reducing, our budgets seemingly getting smaller then I think a few Bulls fans will have to get use to this sort of signing. At least until our Academy is able to supply the 1st team in a similar fashion to Leeds for example.

I'd like to have seen the club re-invest a decent % of the Burgess cash into the 1st team, it is pretty clear now that we simply cannot afford to do that. That is a worry for me..

Isn't Sculthorpe a bit lightweight for a Bulls second row? Surely he'll be centre or wing.

Agreed, and the thing is peacock says if the club had told him they didn't have enough extra money because of the harris signing he'd have been happy with that as well.

Basically a lack of honesty was the reason he left.

Peacock is a champion and when he retires he'll leave a massive hole in the leeds team.

Me too. One wonders how bad things really are.

Dont you remember me predicting this 3 weeks ago? And also saying you are the next Widnes. its all coming true.As for Jefferies and Newton being poor signings for us hahaha. Dont forget you wanted to keep them and they turned you down.They could see what was coming.You wanted moore but he seems to have turned you down also

Yep. I know McNamara didnt want sam to go and certainly not when he did. So we just have to make the best of where we are. The suspicion must be that things are tighter than have been let on and we really need to get our own products into the 1st team ASAP (and then not let them leave for Oz

). But with our juniors becoming ever more important its vital, absolutley critical, that we dont stuff up their development by for example rushing them into the team. And so signings like this are needed, however unpopular, to help the entire squad function for the [iwhole [/iof next year and looking into 2011.

I'm not sure I agree.

Being a leeds fan i've seen a first hand a large number of youngsters come into the team and then become champion players.

Chev walker and JJB made their debuts in 99, they must have been 16/17 at the time.

At the turn of the millenium leeds had to play a massive amount of youngsters all at once because of injuries. I remember in 2001 we were playing hull at home, we had a mediocre team, our coach was about to be sacked, and we had loads of injuries.

This little midget came on, i'd never seen a player so small and straight away he jinked through the defence and sped round the fullback to score a try and then he floated over a touchlline coversion - no problem, i remember thinking ''who the f*ck is this kid?''

The point is these were hardly ideal conditions or environment for youngsters to come into, but they either sink or swim, if they're good enough they'll always swim.

Look at tomkins at wigan, get's his chance (allbeit through injury) and WHAM!

If smith hadn't been injured tomkins wouldn't be scoring a hatrick for england. He'd still just be some youngster on the fringes.

You need to blood the younsgsters.