Well, if Brand didn't play against Wakey that means to me that the coaching staff don't think he is ready for a debut atm, so we have a gap in the squad. If the rumour is true, the club presumably know rather more about the AG situation than we do and view it as a season long gap (with Mamo as cover and Brand when he shows he is ready.) Regardless of how the team play during the year we would still need a replacement. Lets hope that this is an isolated bump in the road rather than a tank track we seem to have stumbled onto.

Our starting centre looks likely to be absent for the duration of the season. Is it such a stretch of thought to be looking to replace him?

TBF, we don't know who would be included in the deal, but if it was some or all of the above lets not forget they would be getting SL experience.

We are in that catch 22 situation.
Club trying to claw some ground on Pies and Leeds...(and Oldham) with youth structures and a strong under 19s...whilst soaking up some cap gravy with doing so...
Obviously trying to target 2022 with them but you get caught out in depth when a situation like Gell springs up.

Not at all, but ushering yet more youngsters out the door to accomodate him smacks of typical wire short term-ism to me.

And McDermott is nobodys fool. Why would he accomodate our cast offs and hand over the family silver?

Toronto desperately need bodies in their squad and are better served by having four squad players than one marquee at present.

It obviously depends on the four who will be going in the other direction. Is it likely that Doro, Robson, Thewliss and ANO will get any game time with us? Maybe they are better off with first team action at this stage for their development?

This is a crisis if your'e in need of second P&L on a Monday, and Only Connect hasn't started!

Be an ideal replacement for Gelling but I doubt it will happen, feels like just elaborate speculation to me.

Yeah Leutele would be awesome but 4 players for him would be a bit much, especially as we don't have many players to throw around. If Kibula goes on a season long loan that would say we don't want him already as we signed him on a 1 year deal

Surely if its a loan deal these young players will go and get a chance to have a year of first team action in SL, being coached by McDermott.

Would they develop faster with a year on the bench at Warrington?

Forty20 podcast mentioned that we have been given 'short shrift' by TWP in our attempt to sign Leutele.

Tony Gigot is available.

...He was

If we become able to add another player, surely a prop is where our need really is?

Bit odd that Toronto have been saying they've spent up the Salary cap and need dispensation to sign more players. Get told no then sign Tony Gigot

Only a month long deal apparently..

They have a duel reg with Rochdale?
Couldn't they sign a player for/ through Rochdale, and DR him back to TWP?

Haven’t we filled that gap with Latu? (Hopefully)

Seemingly not, otherwise he'd have played 1st team rugby last Sunday.

From seeing some of the comments from the Widnes fans they where less than impressed with Latu, although that could just be because he's a Wire.

Below is a direct quote from widnes forum from James Gordon, widnes fan and Journalist.

"I thought Patton was awful, though he was behind a beaten pack.

I didn’t think Latu did badly at all, and the abuse aimed at him was disgraceful."

Clearly he needs to be match fit before we can play him.

I see the latter was applicable, thought that may have something to do with the comments.

Maybe they got him in as French/Canadian

Could just be a case of not being fully fit and leaving Gold coast at 35 degree weather, to suddenly deal with our weather. Maybe he's thinking christ what have i done ha ha. I'm happy to give him time to settle in and show his worth, hopefully he can add some punch to our forwards and take some pressure off Hill, Cooper and Philbin