So...

Newton replaced by L'Estrange. Change for better.
Jefferies replaced by Kearney. Change for better.
Deacon replaced by Orford. Change for better.
Solomona replaced by Sculthorpe. Difficult to call.
Morrison replaced by Hall. Change for better if Hall stays fit most of season.
Tadulala replaced by Reardon. Break even for mine.
Burgess replaced by ?his younger brothers. Uh Oh.
Cook replaced by ?academy products. Change for better.

I think improvement overall given the number of players who were injury prone leaving.

It's a bit too early to say. A lot depends on Hall, Kearney and L'Strange.

Orford will undoubtedly improve us but a lot depends on Kearney succeeding at stand off and remaining free from injury. Hall will hopefully play in more games than Morrison and that should mean an improvement, we'll miss Morrison's influence though.

Newton was a bit of an enigma last year, all too often he seemed to go off the gameplan and disrupted things on the field yet when he was on song he could be as good as any hooker in the comp. I've not seen enough of L'Strange to say whether he'll be an improvement or not.

Losing Sam is a blow but apart from a handful of games he didn't do much last year. With Solomona we hardly saw him at all. If their replacements have more than a dozen good games between them it'll be an improvement on last year's performances. However on paper we are weaker when you look at the ins and outs.

Reardon I think will struggle to play as well as Tadulala.

Hopefully the likes of the Burgesses, Whitehead, Donaldson and Olbison will improve some more.

Unfortunately I'm still unconvinced that some of our failings of last year will be sorted most notably the leaky defence in the right side. If we're pairing Sheriffe and Sykes again we'll be in trouble.

Isn't it fairer to say Burgess replaced by Sculthorpe?

And Cook replaced by academy products=change for better? How does that work?

And Hall for Morrison=net loss for me.

But overall, I think we have a stronger squad. But I thought the same last year too!

Solomona & Burgess = old fashioned ball handling forwards slightly overweight coming off the bench. Seems like a good fit to me!

I've gone for a lot better, although i'm always optimistic at this time of year. I think that Orford's leadership and organisational skills make him a complete halfback, which means that Kearney can have a free role. I'm really excited about this because he has the real pace and eye for a gap that we have been missing recently, I just hope that we can keep him off the treatment table. Debaser I understand what your saying about Hall, but if he's two thirds as good on the field as Morrison and we get 20+ games out of him I think we're on a winner. I've got my reservations about Reardon on the wing, but things can change yet, and I still have a feeling that he will drop to fullback and Halley will move to the wing.

I'd say we're stronger in some areas but weaker in others.

If we'd managed to hold on to Semi AND brought Reardon in I'd be more confident about our wingers. But if the new guys click, especially Orford and Kearney, then I think we'll be a stronger team this year

I have voted "a bit better" but it's more involved than that.
If the question had been "Is the squad better than that which we were, by and large, [iable to put on the field last year[/i" then it would have been a no-brainer for me.

But Kearney and Orford in place of the errtic Jeffries and the ageing and prone to head-clattering Deacon is a huge leap forward and the rest of the squad needs to be judged with that in the forefront.

As has been pointed out, we had a few "star men" who took to the field very little and did not always shine (to say the least) on every occasion they did. The opposite of what you'd expect from the likes of Glenn Hall (who, don't forget, was keeping Steve Menzies out of the team, much of the time last time they played together in the NRL).

I've gone for a lot better. Purely becuase of the halves we've signed. Le'Strange and Orford have also played together before so the connection should be good.

I'd say an improved squad for sure.

A quality wing and centre, whilst maintaing the key members of the 2010 squad, would see us very strong for 2011 IMO.

Overall a bit better.
Definate improvement in the halves. Even with the loss of Sammy B (on last seasons performance) we have improved slightly in the forwards. With the Reardon/Halley scenario at FB and only one proven quality centre I feel we about the same or slightly weaker in the backs. I would like to have re-signed Semi.

I'm going for a lot better. think orford and kearney are a big improvement in the halves and will create a lot more than deac/jeffries. l'estrange offers us some speed around the PTB area from the little I've managed to see of him in NRL, which was missing from newtons game and hopefully he'll be capable of following a gameplan, which Ive heard newton did less and less as last season progressed, preferring to do his own thing. If reardon can get back to anything like for he was in 2003/04 then think hes a small improvement over semi who was starting to slow down a bit last year.

whilst I'd agree hall isnt quite as influential a player as morrison I'd say he's an improvement due to amount of time morro spent out of action. On the same note I dont see solomona as a loss as he might as well not have been in squad last year for amount of gametime we got out of him. If sculthorpe can make a solid contribution then I'd say thats an improvement over solos efforts last year. Cook tbf was being kept out of the squad at backend of last year by whitehead/donaldson so dont think hes a massive loss, although I think he is a player who could come back and bite us in the future.

The only player I dont feel we've really replaced is burgess. Whilst he was average for first half of last season I feel some of that could be blamed on deficiencies of team around him and him being asked to do too much. He looked a lot better at back end of season once rest of team found some confidence. However I think we're going for a slightly different style of play this year with more emphasis on pace and skill as opposed to barging our way through so hopefully this will negate his loss somewhat ( at least for a season or so till the twins breakthrough

)

For mine i think were slightly stronger, much so in the backs so creativity should be good, the forwards im slightly worried as a couple of injuries could see us fielding a very young inexperienced pack.
Having said that we did lose sol for most of, & morro for part of last season but we did have burgess & imo we'll miss him the most. I was quite confident at the start of last season, look how that turned out.

looking in from the outside I'd say your first 17 or 18 are much better than last year but after that your squad looks very thin, it seems to be the same approach Wigan have used for the last few years so you may be in for a roller coaster ride for the new season.

IF the majority stay fit for most of the season you'll do fine, if you pick up 4 or 5 injuries from that 17 you'll struggle but your not the only team in that position.

Rather than thin I'd say inexperienced. Whitehead and especially Donaldson didn't look out of place when they got there chances last season so while they might struggle to cope with a full season, I think we have talent in the back rows of the pack to cover injuries there. Oddly, given our recent forward history, prop seems to be a weak point where outside the first 4 (Scruton, Lynch, Sculthorpe and Kopczak) first team experience is totally lacking. While Langley and Hall can cover prop I'd rather see us not to have to move the rest of the side about too much.

I think taking 4 or 5 of the first pick players out of any SL team (maybe bar 1 sadly) would leave them struggling and we admirably demonstrated last year that even taking out 3 for a long period (Morrison, Solomona and Godwin only played 31 games between them) from a less strong side can have a significant effect.

The publication of the squad numbers really highlights that in spades. Essentially we have 18 reasonably experienced players and a number of youngsters, some with a few first team games under their belt, others yet to play at senior level.

We really need a repeat of 1999, when Pryce, Deacon & Fielden became established first teamers. Otherwise we look very vulnerable in the event of injuries.

Looking at it positively there are bound to be points in the season where the likes of Crossley, Crookes, Olbison and maybe the Burgii get a chance, and hopefully progress. I'm taking it that Whitehead and Donaldson will be planned to feature in around a dozen games increasing on last years appearances.

I'd say that its a must that Whitehead & Donaldson have to feature fairly regularly and have to perform consistently well.

assuming no injuries then I'd expect donaldson and whitehead to be pretty much sharing the brnch 2nd row spot between them most of the year with worrincy maybe getting the odd game. given we have hall and langley in the squad who can cover prop then we may have opportunites to only have one interchange prop and use two interchange 2nd rowers with hall/langley rotating into prop like peacock used to do. Obviously we'd only want to do this against teams with smaller packs.