not confirmed but looking likely

id like to see him at centre, has some size, speed and hard to stop near the try line

mamo
murphy
turner
cudjoe
mcgillvary

i like the look of that back line

brough and gaskell still first choice half backs but we know turner can play there too

Well I certainly can't think of one I'd drop - however that may be because I've never heard of him. Think we are ok in the backs in all honesty.

Think I would prefer:
mamo
macintosh
turner
cudjoe
mcgillvary
as the back 5

Now confirmed on club website, 3 1/2 year deal

never heard of him?





grand final winner for st helens in 2014 if that helps

nah, mcintosh not ready yet, more a full back for me...been asked to play enough games already this season like mellor, no fault of theres mind with injuries, like stone says they need a break

4 1/2 years!!! That's a long deal. You did the same with Gaskell on a six figure salary aswell.

Turner is a decent player but anyone thinking we have pulled off some sort of master stroke in the face of strong competition is just deluding themselves. We seem to be so desperate to get players we are ready to give them anything. We are loading the team up with average and less, Ferguson, Clough, Gaskell," Mellor potential under the right coach"
The problem is we are stuck with these players for a long time now so, even if we survive in S league we are going to be going forward with them for years, Is there going to be some transformation that takes place and changes us from what we are into a competing team.

Whoever makes these long team signings just keeps on doing the same thing, ( sometimes it costs a fortune to get rid of them when things go pear shaped ) We have a team who are in the comfort zone, with many players on long contracts no matter their form.

If he had been another Brough ( who we took a big gamble on ) due to his rep, I could understand it, Brough was a proven class player, who has proved himself to be a match winner on many occasions. Turner has been at at least 4 clubs ( nothing wrong with that ) but he has not risen to any great heights at any one of them, Indeed seems to have been a total failure in Oz.
I'm not knocking him before he has had a chance, because i think he is decent and certainly good enough for a team who play like we do. He may turn out to be a winner ( which would be nice ) but why not a 18 month contract and lets see if he is or not. No the system at Giants seems to be show people how desperate we are by giving big contracts and then praying.
True they may not come if we don't give them what they want, and that is easy to understand, We are a club with little prospects on or off the field, but isn't the saying on here always " if they don't want to pull the shirt on we don't want them ".

Until the whole attitude in and around the club changes we will always be getting the Average/ decent players at big money and contracts, many of who either just don't perform or just go backwards, leaving us stuck with them for a long time. It is IMO a very poor policy but one which we seem determined to stick with, I realize it can't be easy trying to recruit good players to a club with our style and reputation but the stuff we do doesn't sent out great messages.
But why do we never learn, We apparently moved Heaven and Earth to get Brierley and now he is gone, Why we ever wanted him in the first place is beyond me, We haven't played a style of football to suit him since i have been watching the Giants with the exception of the few years where we climbed out of the realms of mediocrity on the back of Browns work, So who signed him and why ? someone has been committing blunders for years and is still doing it.
I started the season thinking that S league survival was enough and it would be a season of rebuilding, I think we will survive via the playoff's but i hope we aren't just kitting ourselves up for the same stuggle for seasons to come .
I wish Turner well, He certainly won't lessen our team, He must have some ambition to have wanted to try his hand in Oz, doesn't sound like he got much chance, we shall see.

Disagree with you on Turners quality. When the Aussies signed him, they only sign quality not average players. If you watch NRL on TV you would see that the Canberra Raiders have top quality all through the team, so not getting in the starting line-up is no disgrace.

No I know he never had a chance over there and i acknowledged that, Also i did say he is decent standard, Certainly up to Giants present standard, and that he obviously has ambitions by wanting to take a shot at the Aussies.

I am not for one moment suggesting he is a bad buy, He may prove to be a good one. I am questioning the policy of long term deals, most of who are just not of the standard to warrant them.

Ferguson, Clough, Gaskell, Smith and Ormsby are bang average players and we should be looking to offload some of them at season end.

Mellor is going to be an excellent 2nd rower. 22 came 2 weeks before season started and played centre which is a tough position at SL level... he's improving all the time. I think he will improve immensely next season training for the 1 position.

Agree.

3 and half years

greg eden and burgess didnt do much in their stints in the nrl but still come back to sl and proved a hit

a stint abroad for a rugby league player can make them a whole lot better, the coaching and playing/training with top players improves you

not sure yet on turners best position but right now i feel we need a centre so put him there

You do realise at the time of us signing Brough he'd been at 5 or 6 clubs and never really settled at any of them, yes, he won the cup at Hull on 05 but after that his career seemed to stall, he was actually playing in the Championship 10 years ago.

He was a bit of a journeyman with a fairly dodgy reputation and a lot of our fanbase, me included, we're very wary of his signing.

He wasn't a 'proven' class player, he was, as he still is, very good on his day but also hit and miss and petulant at times.

Turner may well prove to 'be another Brough' we just don't know but don't forget when we signed Brough it wasn't much of a difference to signing Turner at the time.

"what we signed him for" was used a lot when we announced Danny Brough too.

When the signing of a proven Super League player, a Grand Final winner, at an age when he should be in his prime, who was identified by the NRL as being potentially top class gets so much criticism, I do wonder what on earth some fans expectations are on who we should be signing.

Agree 100% with you there.

And I think Ferguson, Clough, Gaskell, Mellor and O'Brien have done OK for us so far.

Certainly no worse than some of the rest.

If (and I know it's a big IF) we had beaten Trinity we would have been 7 points off Hull in fourth.

It's been an odd season with some very odd results.

Still plenty of points to play for with 5 of last games at home.

Looking forward to Perpingnan.

He was settled at Wakefield and unfortunately he got himself into a spot of trouble financially, and true to form uncle Ken came to your club's rescue with the chequebook offering him the moon on a stick if he signed for you simply because he was a class act and not a liability as you would have us believe, so why don't you say it as it is, out of interest who were the other six clubs he played for before joining shudds.

Ok then maybe at Wakey he was but he was still seen as a bi of a dodgy character when we signed him.

and the others i can think of we're Dewsbury, York, Hull, Castleford, Wakefield - ok then 5 others but my point is still the same - the criticism aimed at this signing is he has had a number of clubs.

What has he been criticized for exactly.

Daz This was not a thread about Brough, I did mention him to make a point and i said we took a gamble on him, But it was because of his rep rather than his ability, And i don't remember many people saying "why have we signed him", because most people recognized his talent, and i would say his leaving clubs had nothing to do with his ability.

My whole point was not about comparing players, It was questioning the policy of long term contracts, It was not about Turners quality , I have said a few times he is a decent player, and certainly good enough for the Giants, That somehow is being construed as being unrealistic , but we have come unstuck before with these long term signings, And yet when we have had genuine class players we have failed to give them contracts, Hogson , Devere, Drew are examples . What did it cost to get rid of Mason when we wanted Kopzac.

Brearley makes a good point , some players go to Oz, don't make it, and come back better players, I'm fine with that, But the fact he didn't manage to break into the team must tell you something, and that's why I'm questioning the length of the deal, Had he been Graham, Hodgson or any of the players who have made a big impact over there it would be more understandable.
So rather than taking your usual stance of defending anything and everything the club does, give us your opinion on long term deals, are they a good or bad thing. The lads from Bradford for eg, Mellor and Obrian, both young lads up and coming, the others all on the way down to one degree or another, and all who i'm told we are stuck with for quite some time.

Again it's not a criticism of the players , Things are what they are, but do you think we are well placed to go forward if we survive.

The sad thing is Jo and this is how I see it - We as a club are not exactly appealing to players. We play a crap style of rugby most of the time and we don't have a great fan base .... along with been a bottom 4 club at present, so the only thing that would attract a good player to us is a long term deal which is what we have to do now to get good players like Turner.

I do question the Gaskell 4 year deal though, that is a strange one and so was Daniel Smith 4 year deal - that was a joke.

They play a crap style of rugby because they have a crap coach to start with.....
Top 6 SL teams have English coaches? Says something doesn't it?
A good coach will attract good players! That's the first building block to success.......

Well it also says something when a player leaves an English coach and can't even get picked by an NRL one..

I'll leave that one with you..