was speaking about him showing up well in the friendlies, though it may well be that he misses the lot - though the club must surely have been savvy enough to recognise that possibility.

I think the best way to go, if he doesn't get cleared in time to play the friendlies, is to see how he goes in training and if he's looking good, give him a 12 month deal with an option for a 2nd 12 months based on performance. You've then, as others have said, got the whole of the regular season to see how he goes. Meaning we'll come up to the middle 8's knowing if he's the guy we need or if we need to draft in a replacement.

I suspect the word on trial is code for we will announce his contract when he gets a visa

Interesting at end of article we're looking bringing another player on trial to bolster our back line. I actually think our back line is SL quality and has plenty of depth.

depends how close to fitness Campbell is. If hs going to be missing for a while and Thomas is needed in halves if Jacks doesnt work out then another fullback could be useful. Also theres still a massive question mark as to whether Nielsens going to comeback or not. Silence from club around that is pretty deafening.

I would kill for a better fullback. Campbell seems a "work in progress" or a gamble at best, as he's as yet unproven for full time RL. Clare is a better winger IMO and the other options again are probably best in other positions or are still quite young.

The fact it's a trial though suggests it's not going to be a proven quality player, otherwise there'd be no need to trial them.

I'd prefer Clare at FB IMHO

He was immense when he played there against Salford

He was, but he was also garbage when he played there in another game (I forget which one, but he got dropped the week after because of it).

I would probably agree he's the best current option, but I'd still rather have a new specialist fullback and Clare on the wing. Actually I'd rather have Mullaney back, but that ship has sailed....

Maybe try and get Naughton on loan from hull?

No chance of that happening, he's their 2nd in line for fullback if Shaul gets a knock.

We have Clare, Mendieka, Thomas and Campbell who can all play at 1. We won't be signing another fullback.

Unless they sign Lee Smith who's there on trial. But I agree, I'd be surprised to see Curt back at Odsal on loan. They'll just dual reg him if he's not in the side.




Mendeika is long term injured allegedly. I don't doubt we have players who CAN play there. I just question if they're good enough to be first choice fullback. Time will tell I suppose.

Agree we have options at the club that can cover fullback.

I also doubt they're good enough in that position.

The good point is that, 'not being good enough', doesn't really become an issue until around 23 matches down the line. To be honest, I guess the club are hoping that one of 'possibles' takes the position by the horns, as it were, and develops sufficiently so as to be classed as 'good enough' by that point. My own view is that there are sufficient, solid 'possibles', for this to be a fairly realistic chance. Guess we'll find out in due course.

And so we come back to the situation of not needing to fill the role straight away. We've a 23 round pre-season to get through so there's plenty of time for the players we've got to step up and claim the spot as their own. In the mean time, we've still got, I believe, at least 1 overseas spot open as well as space on the salary cap so if a player becomes available we're in place to take advantage.

We spent the majority of 2015 missing usually one from our first choice 1,6 & 7 and still finished top out of the Championship sides and only missed out on a return to SL by a narrow margin. There is no rush to fill the position and the club has time to fully explore all options before settling on one

Today's t&a article makes another mention of us landing another trialist, possibly as early as this week. This is at least the second time this week Ross has mentioned something, has nobody heard anything as to who we're looking at? There's normally a few rumours flying around if an announcement is as imminent as Ross is implying...

I was wondering the same Nothus.

Maybe Roger might know? Of maybe "Peter Hood" if he's not on a night shift and has time to post.

Hello Bullseye

No I haven't heard a dickie bird about anything

Completely off topic, I went to Dewsbury on Sunday for Sheffields friendly with them. Making his debut for Sheffield was Mark Mexico who I believe we were rumoured to be looking at a couple of year ago, if I'm not mistaken it might of been me who started the rumour. He's a very direct runner and a very big boy as well, should go well

You starting rumours Rog? Perish the thought.....

Yeah I noticed that Sheffield had signed him. It was just after the world cup when we were linked with him I think. There might even have been some newspaper articles about it so it was more than just rumour. I seem to recall Mark having some visa issues though, and in the end he joined a PNG club.
Should be interesting to see how both he and Offerdahl go next season.

It was indeed just after the world cup. When the likes of Gaz Carvell had left us in the lurch (with arguably good reason) and we had about 1 and a half props, so we were desperate for recruits.

Mexico is a good strong runner. Not sure about the rest of his game.

One things for sure. He'd make more of an impact than our current overseas bench prop.

The PA bloke doing the "We Will Rock You" during the game makes more impact than him.

I am reasonably happy with our signings this season. We look to have ditched the idea of taking risks on unseen players and have signed players from here who we know which makes sense. Some of those forwards I believe could be good signings. A couple of props from this season may feel the pressure if they don't lift their game.
My gut feeling for FB is that Campbell was signed for that position before wing. Agree with above about having too many players who "may" turn out to be this or that. We need more players who are clearly good enough quality for a particular position. More specialists rather than utility players. A few utility players are needed but not 15 of them.

The main stumbling block to the pre season rush to mop up all the good or available players is the "what if Factor" ie 'what if the star player we signed was lacking any form for the forthcoming season?' (hypothetically of course) or suppose he sustained a season long injury in the first friendly (it happened to your Dad Mitch) also how does the coach know how any of the lesser known players are going to live up to a reputation that was only on heresay and the evidence of a few vids.?
In essence I am saying that the coaching staff can only know after the first few games?
Not the most enviable positions when a new side has to be built?

Neverthe less I'm looking forward to the new season!

I have to agree, the squad looks a bit more balanced than last year with fewer unknown elements.
I saw somewhere that Lowes said that he's going to be rotating the squad more this year. Hopefully that's the case as players like Sidlow, Clough and O'Brien were, IMO, asked to do far too much work last year while other players were seemingly allowed to slack off but get picked every week while others were just left dangling along without even a reserve team game to at least maintain some level of match sharpness.

As I've said elsewhere, the core of the squad is strong and has had the benefit of no major off field off-season shenanigans that we've had in recent years. We are only missing 3 players from the MPG and those 3 players were absent/not signed for most of the season. The 2 unknown players that are coming in are doing so on a trial basis and hopefully can show their quality both in training and in the friendly matches (although, I'd be tempted to only give them both a 12 month deal with a club choice option of a second year).

But I still think the weakest link in the chain is Lowes. I do not believe he has the tactical skills to get us promoted nor does he have the man management skills to get the best out of his players on a weekly basis. He also lacks the basics of media handling as we saw all season long culminating in that little meltdown after the MPG.