Is already in the country , arrived Manchester this morning

Bazzo looks bigger than him.

Tiny Tauti.

We could have used some of the money we basically flushed down the bog on moving half way round the planet the likes of Jarred Hickey, Ryan Tongia, Isaac John, Frank Winterstein, Charlie Leano and now possibly Taulima Tauti midway through the season. How much is a return ticket on Quantas these days?

I can't believe there is a chance another decent youngster could be getting away from us and another import is coming in and people don't either see the correlation or indeed think its a problem. OK I accept that from time to time (particularly in the recent past) we had little option and had to go down the import route but we have no obvious excused this time and I for one am very disappointed in the club, coaching staff and board.

I hope he is match fit, not carrying any injuries, has no hidden baggage and a brilliant addition to the club.
However, I am disappointed we have again spent money on another overseas player mid season.
I would imagine our old revolving door has been returned for 2014/5 season as the need for change evolves .

Tommy, I don't think that anyone could disagree with your sentiments and the 1873 thing, was supposed to allow us to keep our best youngsters.
Anakin is an unusual case though.
When do you think that we should have given him a long contract ?
He looked a world beater in the junior final a few seasons ago but, if we are to believe the stuff that gets onto these forums, he only knuckled down in the last close season and made his debut at the start of the season.
We have to hope that he wants to give the club something back but, if it comes down to competing with the likes of Warrington, we are screwed, 1873 or no 1873.
At this point in time all we can offer is regular first team rugby and a possible top 8 finish.
We cant realistically offer the chance of silverware and we probably cant compete on his wage demands, let alone playing in a star-studded first team.
Wakefield have been in this position for all of the years that I have followed them and right now, apart from the occasional highlight, we are as competitive in the top flight as we have been in our recent history. Yes, we are moving forward, slowly, but, the key thing is to keep on developing youngsters who are both, good enough and want to play for Wakefield.

I wonder if there has been some exaggeration about the 6 foot 3 inches and 17 stone stat? Either way lets welcome him to Wakefield and we hope he makes a big difference by playing and scoring a couple of tries on Saturday to win it against Cas.

He is standing like Richard the 3rd. and he is in a car park?

The specifics of the deals for Annakin and TT are secondary to the wider point in my view. As I said, it's probably too late now to get the money together for Annakin but if we hadn't flushed Christ knows how many £10k's (if not £100k's) down the pan on the aforementioned imports then I dare say offering the right money would not be an issue.

It's not my position to decide at when to give Annakin a contract - we have people earning their living working for the club employed to make decisions. These people know the players professionally and personally and spend 8 hours a day (or whatever) in their company, we are reliant on 80 mins a week for those who go to away games - or more realistically for the vast majority 80 mins and radio commentary or trade press report - to form opinions, often biased ones as many get entrenched in their position or are too one eyed to be objective.

We are yet again wasting cash, and the cycle will no doubt repeat itself in the next couple of years - a crop of promising youngsters will not progress and somebody has to take responsibility for this - and the board and coaching staff are completely culpable in my opinion. It's just too easy to blame Huddersfield, Warrington, Leeds or whoever for pinching our players - the harsh reality it's a dog eat dog business and in order to survive we need a culture change and simply have to convert more juniors because throwing money at imports time and again isn't sustainable.

Id be interested in reading your rationale behind that comment......

Very funny comment similar haircut to Richard 3rd as well.

The point I keep banging on about is , the quality in our own produced invincibles

The point I keep banging on about is , the quality in our own produced invincibles

Lets be honest until we move into the new stadium or we get a money bags new owner willing to throw loads of money at the club, we will always be fighting to keep our best talent, it's frustrating at times but that's the reality. It's the same for all clubs in our position, like Cas, HKR & Salford, the best players get pinched by the top 5 or 6 sides, those who are offering the chance of trophies, a better wage packet or in most cases both.

What you need to take into account is that he's stood next to a Toyota Land Cruiser

No, I don't buy it. I agree that the stadium (or lack of it) is undoubtedly our biggest challenge and it will always be an uphill struggle, but that is only part of the problem. This makes it even more important to ensure the limited resources we have are directed to the areas that need it most and pouring thousand after thousand on mid/low level imports often mid season is crazy. A quick look at the Cas squad shows the following who I [iassume[/i to be products of their system:

Owen
Shenton
Walker
Huby
Milner
Massey
Holmes
Boyle
Thompson

All regular, solid enough first teamers playing most weeks. Now compare and contrast ours...... We are, more or less scouting the same pool of players at community level so why the difference? What do they do that produces the spine of their side that we don't? If it is down purely to cash then we should free up funds from elsewhere in the budget, and my call would be imports who more often than not flop to a greater or lesser degree.

With regards to putting KR in the same bracket, one of their forwards who used to play for us had a far better game for them than anything in RW&B on Sunday - and that includes our big name imports, so it's not simply a case of glamour clubs hoovering up our talent.

I don't think there's nothing to buy imo, I didn't think I was particularly saying anything that hasn't been said before plenty of times, it is what it is. What I said before was more a point of IF we do lose out to a team like Warrington for the services of Annakin, who's to say if we did find the money to meet whatever teams like that can find, would he still not go to the top 4 side.

I think in the past our junior development has been poor and was a definite area of concern but I believe it's getting better from what I see & hear from around the club. I also think that questions need asking about why he likes of Cowling haven't been brought back from Dual reg.

In the past we've made some errors with overseas players we've signed, atm though I like the overseas players we have and they're of a good quality, Smith, Aiton, Collis, Poore & Ali are all good overseas pro's.

As for the forward playing for HKR who used to play for us, I wasn't at the game but I could only see Luke George's name on their list that played for us. Out of all the players that have left us the last few years, from the likes of Murphy, George, Ferguson & Pitts etc, which of them didn't move to clubs with more money because I can't remember too many.

The great David Topliss

once said to me that at the end of the day Wakefield would ALWAYS be a selling club.

You are correct with these 9 players - Owen, Shenton, Walker, Huby, Milner, Massey, Holmes, Boyle and Thompson but don't forget Daz Clark. All these feature for Cas Tigers on a regular basis. Additional squad players are James Clare, Charlie Martin and Dan Fleming who have played over a dozen games between them this year.

When we played Widnes a couple of weeks ago 12 of the 17 were home-grown Castleford players. As you know, clubs like us and Saints don't get any medals for this and the bafoons on Sky didn't even pick up on it but it is certainly cheaper and the way forward IMO.
Even in defeat (which we have had many) - its very satisfying to see all the time and hard work in developing these youngsters come to fruition. The production line of SL quality players is alive and well in our area - WTW might need to up their game a bit in this department thats all - take more of a chance with the youngsters.

17 stone plus and 6.2.

So he's not small.

Midget

Teeny Tiny Taulima Tauti!!!

On a serious note, i hope he isn't crap - size isn't everything neither is a disproportionate amount of vowels or a "funny" accent!!

Personally, I think we're past the Hickey, Laeano type signings, so I feel reasonably hopeful; I guess we'll find out on Saturday.