Heard a whisper that there's space for bringing in one more player, but no more than that, and no names.

Wasn't that already said by Price weeks ago?...or did Mamo take that space??

Never thought I'd say this ... but I think we don't need any more at the moment.

I'm guessing any players that come in now for 2019 would be 'squad fillers' rather than players we expect to take a first 17 shirt on a regular basis. For that reason I'd think we were better keeping our powder dry and seeing how the year shapes up with injuries, possibly look to add someone later in the year if we have a run of injuries in one specific position.

We have managed only 6 tries in the last 4 finals we have played in, losing them all. The problem pre-dates Brown. We have had a creativity issue since Briers left, and this stems from the halves not being good enough.

I completely disagree.
I lay the fault at the management and the forward line during their tender.

BBC ,Scott Moore back in the RL fold at Rochdale. Training at Wire's facilities today. Could he become a dual reg player if he is over his demons ?

Why on earth would we want him?
Past his best and we already have enough cover at 9 with Clarke, Patton, walker and Smith

So what is the excuse for this season? Management, forwards or halfbacks?

Why does there have to be an excuse (blame)? We undoubtedly underperformed at Wembley and that was disappointing. Not everything goes to plan.
I thought we played as well as we had been doing all season in the GF. I would go so far as to say we exceeded expectation in defeating Saints in the semi final.
Time to look forward with hope and anticipation...

I believe we played poorly in the GF. We were unable to score any points for over an hour, just like 2016. Price also agreed that we were unable to execute our plays to unlock the defence.

However I think we have turned the corner with Price and we had a very good season from where we were.

I do believe we have an extant issue with creativity and the ability to make breaks. Lets see if it's different next season.

So apparently Hull Kr are about to sign Drinkwater and the morgan smith deal is off. Does that mean he's without a club or are we keeping him? Meant to post this Monday but not had a chance.

Love him or hate him Sam Tomkins was the most influential player in the GF ,passing, support play, positional kicking & well judged "gamesmanship" . He was the difference between the two sides.

Over the that time period Wigan scored 8 tries in finals, Hull 5, Leeds 4, Catalans 3 and Castleford 1. Saints ain't even scored 1.

Doesn't seem to me we've done that bad. Can't be goal-kicking that got us there can it?

Too true, Paul, but unfortunately all of those bar Cas have won at least one final too.

Heard this long after Mamo signing announced. Seemed a bit odd to me as we're now in December, but time will tell.

It wasn’t just him. When Sean O’Laughlin gets the ball in hand he is pretty much as good as their 1 6 7 9 and int9 at creating time, space and quality passes. They had dangerous creative options everywhere.

We had Brown and Ratchford and that’s about it. Clark isn’t that creative and even though Brown is a half back, he created absolutely nothing in both finals.

I think you are purposefully not disclosing the amount of finals they have been in (or indeed won).

2016 -> 2018

Winners
Cats - 1 final - 3 tries, won 1/1 (3 tries / final)
Hull - 2 finals - 5 tries, won 2/2 (2.5 tries/final)
Wigan - 3 finals - 8 tries, won 2/3 (2.6 tries/final)

Losers
Cas - 1 finals - 1 tries., won 0/1 (1 try/final)
Wire - 4 finals - 6 tries, won 0/4 (1.5 tries/final)


2009 -> 2015
Wire - 5 finals, 22 tries, won 3/5, (4.4 tries/final)

You cannot expect, in general, to win finals scoring < 2 tries.
This is clear evidence of our inability to score sufficient tries in finals post Briers.

I think Michael Monaghan was a bigger loss than Briers, to me he was the best attacking #9 in Superleague as he had a running, passing and kicking game.

Point being you can't get to play in finals without some attacking prowess that you seem unwilling to acknowledge.

It also shows how tries are at a premium in finals.

I would agree we lost to Catalans due to an absence of a controlling half but in the grand final the better team won. If Roberts had been the player for us his NRL performances suggested he should have been we may well have beaten Wigan in the Grand Final but even that wouldn't have been a given with the will to defend Wigan had.

We beat Hull if our halfback hadn't got injured.

Yes fair enough, PY. Beating Saints to get to the GF 2018 was a superb performance, no issue with that.

Similarly our 23-0 win over Wigan in the QF was a very good performance too.

The best team did win in the GF and that was because their defence far outweighed the ability of our attack, and their attack was creative, clinical and timely. The creative class from George Williams (sublimely weighted kick catching out Charnley who is no mug), Oliver Gildart (running at pace in the centre channel beating a man and creating an overlap), Shaun O'Laughlin (in centre field acting like a HB switching play from left to right when he saw we were not numbered up right) and Sam Tompkins (bullet inch perfect pass to Manfredi) being the difference.

It's that attacking quality I refer to.

When you think of our 2017 attack in truth we have Ratch and Clark who are exciting players that can make an opportunity with ball in hand.

We need somebody backing up these players to finish off any breaks.

I hope that's Austin, I said last year myler would have been great, I don't think he is a creative half at all and I simply wouldn't let him kick on our last plays but he is one of the best support runners in superleague. He'd love playing with Clark.

Morgan Smith to Salford. www.totalrl.com/smith-in-talks-with-salford/

Morgan Smith to Salford. www.totalrl.com/smith-in-talks-with-salford/

Heard we haven't spent full cap, but nobody on the radar.