yet many fans who truly believe this will no doubt be the same ones bemoaning our England international team saying we have a lack of homegrown talent.

the day will come when the Aussies don't have the upper hand. why do you think they always refuse to play up to SL demands / requests. they are constantly trying to belittle us and any new ideas we have to bring the game to a wider audience and that is simply down to the fact that they want to retain the talent. if and when the game does grow, that talent pool will dilute naturally which is what they hope to prevent. its arrogant and won't last forever. they'll soon have it rubbed in their noses. personally I think the English game is on the rise at least at SL level and with the many ventures the club and national sides are going on it won't be too long before that pool of talent that sits nicely in Oz will soon want away and when that comes, RL in general will be better off.

back to drinkwater, so what if his form attracts Australian / NZ team attention. our England side has flourished with the likes of graham and the burgess bros over there. we can't keep everyone and neither will everyone continue to want away from the UK.

Quite right. Unfortunately the strength of the pound not being as good as well as the famous tax loophole closing will no help either. people were crying out for less Aussies in our game, we are currently getting less aussies and the overall quality of the competition has dropped. The only reason we are standing toe to toe with them on the international stage is because more of our players are playing there

Just been reported that Drinkwater is wanted by Wakefield in place of Finn, but Catalans want to keep him.

I thought Finn wanted to stay at Wakey?

He does but they might think they need to refresh a bit.

i'd snap Finn up too for that matter...

Really? I wouldn’t be too keen to be honest.

he's going a lot better than what we have got, but i'd imagine would command a bigger fee and wage than drinkwater to be fair

But should we be aiming for ‘something better than we’ve got’ if we what have is awful or should we be targeting a genuinely class scrum half? I suggested Drinkwater after we played Leigh in preseason and most people who responded on here were very much against the idea. He’s doing for Catalan what Dobson did for us and I’d be happy if we got him.

yes definitely Drinkwater out of the two, someone just brought Finn up so I was adding in he is another I rate.

Liam Finn. Are you really serious? He's slower than Matty Smith ever was and he's almost 35 years of age. Heading for Bradford next year I believe.

yet he is playing twice as well as smith, Williams and Powell combined.

i'm not saying he is my number one priority! just a passing comment. I massively rate Drinkwater and he is a good suit for wigan both on the pitch and as far as finances are concerned.

I watch Trinity most weeks. Finn has been a great signing for the club, done a lot better than most expected, he is on a msssive decline this year though.

Old Father Time has caught up with him, both physically and mentally too.

He was never one to make a clean break even if he had the space to as he never backed himself due to his lack of pace but he was always a great organiser, however he seems to have lost a yard of pace mentally too and is also struggling with that this year.

How many Wakefield games have you seen this season?

just the ones I can watch on TV because i'm a very bad fan who never goes to games and therefore my opinion doesn't count of course...

I don't see what is wrong with my response, Finn is still having a decent season whether its below par for his standards or not. the fact I think he is still doing better than the 3 I named merely implies I think he is doing better than them in comparison. it doesn't mean I think we should sign him. I will once again maintain that I came on here to rate Drinkwater. I simply commented on someone mentioning Finn.

We’ve discussed Drinkwater, Powell, Woods, Finn etc on this thread but one player I find very exciting that nobody has mentioned is Jake Trueman at Castleford. I think he’s an exceptional talent and one I think will be better than all of those mentioned so far. I’m not saying Cas would release him but he’d be worth a good attempt by KR and IL.

Watching Greg Bird last night got me wondering about a season or two of him playing a Lockers type role with us too. Old, experienced head, good leader, good skills - similar to Bryan Fletcher in that regard. I know he made a few errors but with Bateman leaving and Lockers being Lockers, we are going to need some leadership in that pack.

He gives away too many errors and penalties IMO (in general, not just yesterday). He is more penalised than any player on our team (4th in the league), and has made more errors than any forward in SL.

I only have one issue with Greg Bird: I dislike him more than any player currently playing the game.



The grub.

At one point it was being reported he’d signed for us before he went to Cas. We got Joe Brown from Bradford and the young lad currently playing centre for Hull (Cameron Scott) also left at the same time.

We may well regret not pushing the boat out a bit more at the time for Trueman.

I think the fact that we had two very good young halfbacks in Harry Smith and Callum Green coming through may have influenced that decision.

Fancy either to break through?

Seen bits of Harry Smith this year and he looks a good player but don’t know a great deal about either player.

Think we got a good one in Brown. Been a stand out whenever I’ve watched the young lads

Noticed he’s been scoring try’s out on loan at Swinton recently as well. Only downside for him is that’s hes another winger.

So did Joel Tomkins and Bird is far superior