Always winter never Christmas.

It could be that Christmas is their most stressful time of the year, it's not necessarily great for everyone. I personally, am now thinking of Newbury fruits and those orange and lemon slices that come in a flat round container. Also, the festive season is not the same without a Boxing day, and New Years day game against Widnes and Wigan.

And those marzipan fruits that looked soooo tempting but tasted of…bloody marzipan!

Aren't we getting mixed up with Saints Yorkshire cousin called Forrerd.

It’s a tough one with centres these days. It’s just a bit of a lost art. Centres these days just seem need to run straight lines, be able to do basic catch and pass, be solid defenders and that’s pretty much it. If you’re good at chasing kicks it’s a bonus.

The days of Lyon, Gidley, Gleeson, Gasnier etc who could actually CREATE the space seem to be behind us. It’s a byproduct of the insistence on playing percentages, in my opinion. Same with a lack of genuine creativity from halfbacks. We just rely on ruck speed to create space.

Wrench (right now, but still young with lots of potential) and Ratchford don’t really fit in to that mood of being strong line runners and efficient defenders. So Burgess might be looking at 2 new centres, but that would mean moving King on to free up some money to balance the books. King, in a non-competitive field, is still in the top 4 or 5 centres in the league, but is not worth the money we committed to him.

Moving King on may prove very difficult. There is no team in the league prepared to match his ludicrous contract.I can't blame him for sitting tight and pocketing the dough riding the gravy train to the end of the line.

Don't like winter especially the dark nights..and certainly not a fan of Christmas glad when boxing day arrives and can have a horsey and football bet

Yes, it looks like the only way to move King on permanently, would be to pay him off after his 1st season back with us, using the Marquee rule.

Doubt if we would though, there is too much money involved.

More likely to loan him to another club, to see out his contract and subsidise the other club for doing so.

That way King`s wages are all loaded onto the other club`s Salary Cap.

Why are we so set on moving King on?

I agree. Keep him. He can cost very little on the cap and despite his weaknesses is still a half decent centre by todays SL standards. We could, however, sell him to Souths as they’ve just had a ‘bring your dog to training’ day….he’d fit right in.

You may be confusing him with a certain Mr J Monaghan!

He is keeping his place in the Wigan team which recently looks much stronger. To buy 2 new centres would be a hell of a risk as we are all well aware that not all new players live up to their billing.

I hope they cleaned up after their dogs in a responsible dog owner way, otherwise.............

I don’t mind King. He’s actually quite good. But, he’s being paid a fortune by all accounts. Loopholes on the cap or not, the club are still paying that money if he stays with us. Big money needs to produce a big impact. King does a lot well, makes meters, good off-loader and is great in kick chase. But if you lined the players up on ability to impact results, he wouldn’t be in the top 3,4,5 positions where his pay would put him.

That said, the loophole means we get a good centre in at peanuts on the cap. So there’s motivation for the coach to keep him, motivation from the board to move him on. The ball is in King’s court to make himself look value for money.

Just pulled this from the recruitment thread, the majority of people are using hindsight in their opinion of king(Powell disruptions notwithstanding) this was the type of stuff that was getting posted at the time when his contract was up, we finally get a good academy player (and he was unstoppable at the start of that season) and they leave to sintellins.

Same stuff as what's been posted about Clark going to saints, if we'd given him a new contract you'd have the same grumbles after the fact.

I'm struggling to think of a game where I felt he was really good! I've always felt he had potential (and still do) bit I don't think he has taken the chances he has had personally.

No chance saints would be interested given what he has shown, unless it was a cheap punt on a younger player with potential to cover their 2 first choice centre options.

It certainly would be ironic if King gets a winner's ring from OT this year & Clark gets one next year.

Interesting interpretation but inaccurate... I made observation to the fact he would be picked up and utilised by one of the other top clubs....that is a certainty ...The lad doesn't need a contract payrise ... We need to make use of him during his existing one to prove his value or otherwise ...if he goes that's not hindsight.. that's just repitiion of poor recruitment and retention decisions which the club are culpable for

Given that the chances he has had have been in a team that was underperforming his strike rate of 12 tries in 27 appearances isn't too shabby. We are still persisting with matautia who has crossed for 6 tries in nearly 2 full seasons with us and is a turnstile in defence.

Is this the type of thinking that got,Patton, Livett, and King new contracts, and almost got Longstaff one (I admit to buying in to Longstaff despite FMC’s words of warning).

Where's the reference to new contract??? ... Again to reiterate I have suggested we use him within his existing contract rather than just sideline to see in regards to his value going forward rather than just let it go somewhere else ...we give established players all year to do not much such as matautia but won't take a punt on the potential of the young players

Thing is with wrench he was a 2nd row converting to , who then got thrown in on the wing in a disruptive underperformed side and then did his acl, so that basically removed 10 months of development and experience. However people are putting him on a pedestal because they don't like matautia as if he's the great answer, he hasn't been great since coming back,

He scored a try at castleford away that both of our centres could only dream about.

And was pretty poor in defence iirc, looking like a stranger

Just to say, I'm not against the lad, I want him to succeed, if we had him ashton and dufty in the side, that would be unreal.

But there's a lot of revisionist thinking en masse about Toby King and how we had to keep hold of him cos the club would be poor at recruitment which turned into we overpaid him, why did we keep him the club is poor at recruitment