Agreed but major question marks for me over the fitness of Carvell, Wood(!), Pickersgill and Cooper. That only leaves one prop.

Pickers and Cooper have got age on their side but I am far from being convinced on the showings I have seen so far. I will enjoy being proved wrong obviously.

That list can probably be cut in half if you filter out the players likely to be denied a visa

I'm not convinced about pickersgill or cooper myself yet. However, now all our young players are under a world class coach I think we should give them a fresh start. Even a moaning git like me is willing to.

Sounds nice, cap it off with Hazem El Masri who is one of if not the bes goel kicker in the NRL and i'm happy

In NRL history I would say

Can't see El Masri coming to England, I think he will play his whole career with the Bulldogs, he's an important figure for them politically. The Bulldogs have trouble with an element of their supporters (mainly Lebanese). They had to move out of the Sydney Showground and to Stadium Australia because only Stadium Australia has the security to deal with it. El Masri is seen as a community leader and a responsible role model, so he helps keep the lid on simmering racial tensions which could easily boil over.

Should be interesting when Cronulla turn up.

phil graham, jerome ropati and possibly matt utai please.

To be honest, I don't think I want anyone from the NRL for next year - we've not exactly had a great success rate in recent years have we! And we've signed too many players that have come simply because we've offered them the best deal. Matt King for example - I don't think there was ever any intention of him coming here until we steamed in at the last moment with a bigger offer than anyone else.

What we need are players that want to play for Warrington. Doesn't really matter where they come from of course, but let's not just cherry pick big name players and attract them with big offers. If we do go overseas, it's people like Dobson we need to find.

Alternatively, for amusement, can we go after the following:

Raiders: Nigel Plum.

Bulldogs: Brent Crisp,

Storm: Sinbad Kali,

Rabbitohs: Beau Falloon,

What do you think of our success rate of signing players from SL....Reardon, Johnson, Vinnie Anderson...?

The problem was who we signed rather than them being from the NRL. Other clubs got good value out of players from the NRL, Tony Smith signed Scott Donald and Brent Webb and they score every week for Leeds.

I don't mind too much if we sign someone who is coming over here for financial reasons if they do the business. Jonathan Davies came to us because we offered him a mammoth contract....but he did the business...

That Aka Uate could be worth a go, on a smallish contract, He looked pretty good in the World Cup. If you were trying to get some back into the club, a few from SL, and one or two from the NRL, he could be an option. Looked quite an exciting player.

I don't think there is a real need for a 'world class' halfback.

Looking at the last two genuine World Class halfbacks in the Super League, Johns and Barrett, then we're going back to Sally and Rob's points about players with the 'X-Factor'. With that, however, you sort of end up relying on one man performing miracles. With Johns and Barrett, ourselves and Wigan didn't nessercarily sweep the board, did we?

Now, if we look at successful sides over recent years, the teams such as Bradford, Saints, Leeds, even Hull FC, none of these had what you would term 'world class' halfbacks. Deacon has his critics, he's slow, he doesn't take the line on, etc, Long is constantly 'bagged' by all and sundry, and Saints and Bradford were successful without Pryce at 6, so that arguement doesn't nessercarily stand up.
What such halfbacks did bring to the fore, however, was something that they offered to the team that was perhaps different from what others did, and their attributes were used as part of a team ethic and gameplan.

I see a lot of potential in Pickersgill. I also see him as being good enough to come off the bench as he is now.

Great hitter and a decent runner. He also looks to offload in the tackle but just needs to pick his moments a little better.

Get Darren Lockyer.

Agreed. i'm sure he could handle 2 seasons of superleague, and would put bums on seats.

I couldn't handle another possible false dawn



Brilliant player though!

Its a pitty that Michael Witt isn`t really a flashy/creative stand off as he would certainly solve our goal kicking problems, i suppose if you could pair him up with a world class scrum half then it could work.

Nobody else on that available list really appeals, even Karmichael Hunt doesn`t seem to be kicking on from the sparkling rookie tag to the next level plus he has had his injury problems and off field discipline issues.

hey Rob have you been working at Newcastle Knights?

Did you hear they were going to give Byron Ford a contract for this year - but he got banned for 12 months for failing a drugs test!

Quote ="sally cinnamon"hey Rob have you been working at Newcastle Knights? Did you hear they were going to give Byron Ford a contract for this year - but he got banned for 12 months for failing a drugs test!'" Yeh i read about it, its a strange one .... Whatever next in the NRL after all the goings on of late, Lee Briers to be announced as fitness and defensive coach at Manly ? www.theherald.com.au/news/local/ ... 57961.aspx

Quote ="sally cinnamon"hey Rob have you been working at Newcastle Knights? Did you hear they were going to give Byron Ford a contract for this year - but he got banned for 12 months for failing a drugs test!'" Yeh i read about it, its a strange one .... Whatever next in the NRL after all the goings on of late, Lee Briers to be announced as fitness and defensive coach at Manly ? www.theherald.com.au/news/local/ ... 57961.aspx

I think we should stop looking at the NRL for player recruits.

It would be a massive mistake to stop looking at the NRL completely for player recruits. We just have to find the ones who fit instead of going for the stand out performers. For me the one man I would look at if available is Dallas Johnson from the Melbourne outfit, he is a machine and would definately shake up our ailing defence. From that list though i'd go with David Taylor the giant, plus Matt Orford and Glenn Hall from Manly.

Yes I agree; maybe stop looking altogether is the wrong comment from me! As you say we should look at the right players instead of the obvious players. Look back at when we signed the 'unknowns' Toa Kohe Love, Darren Burns and Nigel Vagana; that is the type of recruitment we need.

wait til next season


mind you we have got to endure the rest of this one!the future under tony smith will be bright,he's the right man to make the changes,he knows who he wants and he'll have the finances.

There's been a hell of a lot of comments on here in the last few months about the problems we've encountered in signing players from overseas and those that have already achieved success and [imight[/i not have the same hunger and ambition as up and coming players.

That all seems to have disappeared!
(Granted, there will always be exceptions.)

Here's the 'Off-Contract' list for the Super League clubs.
Hull KR have got a couple of experienced internationals up for grabs!

I suspect the NRL list will look a whole lot more inviting when you get to the bottom of this post!

Hull KR
Fitzhenry, J Netherton, Welham, Aizue, Fox, Gene, Lovegrove
Bradford
[uLynch[/u, [uSam Burgess[/u Jeffries, Halley, Solomona, Morrison, Cook, Sykes, Tadulala, Menzies, Newton
Castleford
Evans, Feather, Dixon, Higgins, K Netherton, Faumaina, Mike Wainwright (perfect escape goat)
Huddersfield
Kirmond, Griffin, Lolesi, Brown, Hemingway
Hull
Thorman, G Horne, Thackray, Tony, Cusack, Lee, Whiting, Byrne
Leeds
Gibson, Ablett, Senior, Leuluai, Smith, Donald, Worrall
Harlequins
[uPurdham,[/u McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Temata, Grayshon, Haggerty, Howell, Ward, Orr, Melling, Randall
St Helens
Cayless, Cunningham, Gilmour, Gidley, Long
Wakefield
Drew, Blanch, Sculthorpe, Rooney, Blaymire, Bibey, Obst, Martin
Wigan
Coley, Phelps, K Pryce, Mossop, Bailey, Smith

Burgess is under contract til 2011, signed an extension last season