This season we went for a smaller squad but we just forgot to ensure that those we signed were of better quality.

Kettykat B Smith came did it and it worked ,players did not like it, so he went .Are we now reping the result of that of that or is it to long ago T Smith is brother seem to improve teams were ever he goes, and if you look at HKR now it is not because of money more of getting a team fit and to know what to look for in a player .Know W Poaching as not signed a lot but think there as good if not better than most of the players signed in the last 3 year. So hopefully he knows what he wants in a player which is a start

Yeah but the likes of Lineham & Gaskell are still 'name' players if you like, it's subjective if you think they were actually any good at their previous clubs, it's an opinion I suppose, but even those 2, along with Kopzack, Brough, Atkins to name but 3 are 'bigger' names than Grix, Finn, England etc

So what your saying poptart is that the players that are running out for us are playing to 100% of their capabilities, I’d say nowhere near and more like 50% , and a few are obviously more but when you have too many not pulling their weight you could throw a few NRL superstars into the mix and your on a hiding to nowhere. It’s a team sport and for us to have any success with the current squad they all have to pull their weight , without the forwards making ground the backs can’t do their stuff . That’s what is all the more frustrating because they aren’t as bad as they look ,yes we won’t be challenging the playoff this season but we should be a lot more competitive than we are . Said it for years and I stand by this , you can tell what we are going play like in the game and get effort wise in the first 10 mins , with the hit ups of the forwards and the energy in the tackling of the team . Take Kelepi he’s a shadow of the player he was ,why , I bet your bottom dollar if he was picked up by saints or Wigan he’d be a world beater again, he just doesn’t have to run his blood to water for us and that’s just not picking on him ,there are plenty more to choose from ,but he’s our star player at present . It’s attitude and pride in the shirt/club that get you up for a game and we are sadly lacking in both at present , and poaching needs to get that into them asap .

I believe the players revolted when tougher regimes were brought in. I don't know who, or whether it were a few players. Hopefully, the ones involved in the rebel are no longer involved. Do players not realise, that probably one of the reasons why other teams are more successful if the training is stricter, and if they moved on it would be harder.

I do like WP, not sure he's the right personality for this gig yet, but TS would be on my shopping list, it would just depend on whether big brother has warned him to steer clear

I saw the list of players becoming free agents, Kasiano, Dudson, Havard, would all add size, though I think Kasiano and Dudson may be a bit old

Harvard would be a cracking signing ,young Wigan trained and runs in like a steam train ,also Dudson would add a bit of biff but I’d leave Kasiano who I would think comes with a big price tag and on his day can be a match winner but suspect in defence and disappears ,we’ve enough of them already .

Really impressed with Havard when I watch him. Would be surprised if Wigan don't re-sign him.

Unlimited funds compared to us not the other NRL teams.

Harvard already rebuffed 2 approached from Melbourne.

I think his contract has a further year in Wigan’s favour.

He won’t be in SL beyond the age of 24/5 though. He may sign one more contract at Wigan before going to the NRL.

We are constantly being told that we have the smallest playing budget therefore it is imperative that this is spent wisely. The problem is that for this season it was not with I would suggest the bulk going to Gaskell and Lineham. I would also add the money wasted on Brough who many pointed out me included that he was too old for a one year contract let alone two and no longer the player he was.
I hope that we survive these obvious failures but I fear that we will struggle to retain our better players and will look to replace with the too old or too young but whatever we do rather than continue to tell us what we know about our finances use it more wisely.

So if you are going back to Brough for your 'failures' are you accepting that Lino, Westerman, Hall, Lewis Murphy and Batch resigning were all good recruitment?
Personally I'd put Kay and Hood in that too personally.

Not every signing will work perfectly, especially when they get injured straight away like Lineham and Gaskell but that's just how it goes.

When you are in the financial position we are told we are in all signings must improve the team or it is money wasted, do you not agree. I could of added Atkins and let’s not forget that Murphy and Batchelor were existing players so not really recruited. If we used your same criteria it was folly to allow Westerman to leave if he was one of our better signings which I don’t disagree.
I could add Chester which club would agree to pay him his salary for the duration of an unsigned agreement. I wonder how much that would remove from the club’s budget for this season.

We didn't allow him to leave, he left.
We still needed to resign them and their wage comes out of the same money pot as the new signings.

We released several players at the end of last season thereby saving the club money. I note you do not mention the Chester situation which you must agree would have been or was an unnecessary waste of vital resources.
The truth is you can quote our budget but that doesn’t excuse the players we have signed this season and the problems we face to survive.

I think the term is less of a loss rather than saving money £400k is a pretty big hole to cover.

Gaskell and Lineman were not fit when they got here ,and did we need them Hood is the same did we need him If there are not better than what we got why sign them .Fans are pointing out that with the small budget we got .the club can not afford to carry any body .This is not a one off it as been going on for the last 3 year, This as got to be the one of the worst pack i have seen since we got into S L .Not saying they have not been good S L players they are old now .The club have been giving out too long a contracts to players who were past there best when they joined the club We have done a lot of panic buying and now lot of fans are panicking that we could get religated .Remember.most of our core of the team ,Miller ,T J ,Dave, are out of contract this year so we could be left with the same old injury prone players with out the core who have carried the team for the last 3 years .Ask your self this how many games have we won when J M, T J and Dave have been missing

If you mean paying him the agreed contract money, as was explained to you at the time, it did not come from the club.
And coaches salary does not come under salary cap.
So no. It had no impact on any of this.

Not sure why you are going round in circles. As a reminder. We have made some good signings, and we have signed some players that got injured. I'm not sure what you think is being excuses.


But hey, you carry on trying to find a negative to moan about if it makes you happy.

I'm not sure how many games we've played with all 3 missing but we beat Warrington without two of them.

I get your point but we are where we are.
If we go down then those players weren't good enough.

And I'm not sure which forwards you'd have rather signed that were available to us.

I think it’s agreed by most that Trinity needed SL standard props to be signed not wingers (Lineham, Minns & Davetanilavu) or back rowers at the end of last season.

The squad appears unbalanced and doesn’t appear to have sufficient strength in depth in key positions in the pack and clearly struggle when the best 17 aren’t available…

I know plenty who were astounded that we took Gaskel as it was common knowledge within the game that his hamstring was literally hanging by a thread.

Signing Linham was desperate and a total head scratcher when we had Murphy coming through, Kay who was signed as a winger, Croft who could play either centre or wing and we let Olly Greensmith go despite his try scoring form playing on the wing for Doncaster. We still have Bill Tupou and we could also have retained Hampshire

Signing wingers when we had so many other options smacks of the ridiculous signing of Alex Walker when we already had Jowitt and Hampshire, it’s a stupid waste of the small player budget when we desperately need strengthening in other areas of the team.

In the meantime we have desperately needed at least 2 SL standard front row forwards for around 2 to 3 years and we sign Battye from relegated London and Whitbread from relegated Leigh. We’d have been better off signing their namesakes Nora and Fatima.

I don’t know who’s making the decisions on recruitment but whoever it is or was got more wrong than right.
It’s not being negative PT, it’s calling it out for exactly what it is

Quote ="The Avenger"I know plenty who were astounded that we took [uGaskel[/u as it was common knowledge within the game that his hamstring was literally hanging by a thread. Signing Linham was desperate and a total head scratcher when we had Murphy coming through, Kay who was signed as a winger, Croft who could play either centre or wing and we let Olly Greensmith go despite his try scoring form playing on the wing for Doncaster. We still have Bill Tupou and we could also have retained Hampshire Signing wingers when we had so many other options smacks of the ridiculous signing of Alex Walker when we already had Jowitt and Hampshire, it’s a stupid waste of the small player budget when we desperately need strengthening in other areas of the team. In the meantime we have desperately needed at least 2 SL standard front row forwards for around 2 to 3 years and we sign Battye from relegated London and Whitbread from relegated Leigh. We’d have been better off signing their namesakes Nora and Fatima. I don’t know who’s making the decisions on recruitment but whoever it is or was got more wrong than right. It’s not being negative PT, it’s calling it out for exactly what it is'" viewtopic.php?f=33&t=634241

Quote ="The Avenger"I know plenty who were astounded that we took [uGaskel[/u as it was common knowledge within the game that his hamstring was literally hanging by a thread. Signing Linham was desperate and a total head scratcher when we had Murphy coming through, Kay who was signed as a winger, Croft who could play either centre or wing and we let Olly Greensmith go despite his try scoring form playing on the wing for Doncaster. We still have Bill Tupou and we could also have retained Hampshire Signing wingers when we had so many other options smacks of the ridiculous signing of Alex Walker when we already had Jowitt and Hampshire, it’s a stupid waste of the small player budget when we desperately need strengthening in other areas of the team. In the meantime we have desperately needed at least 2 SL standard front row forwards for around 2 to 3 years and we sign Battye from relegated London and Whitbread from relegated Leigh. We’d have been better off signing their namesakes Nora and Fatima. I don’t know who’s making the decisions on recruitment but whoever it is or was got more wrong than right. It’s not being negative PT, it’s calling it out for exactly what it is'" viewtopic.php?f=33&t=634241

I don't think your comment is negative at all.
But it does ignore tge fact that most of the wingers you talked about were injured and we didn't know Murphy would transition so well to 1st team.
A metre gaining winger is pretty much as valuable as a metre gaining prop these days. You need both.

But as with Scarlet, you link a perceived bad signing and say recruitment is terrible while ignoring the good recruitment.

For a guy who has such ‘knowledge’ you’re another one who bends the truth to suit.

I could argue most of what you say to but opinions are opinions but the most laughable comment regards Murphy. Absolute tosh I'm afraid.

When we signed Lineman virtually nobody on here had heard of Murphy. I was one of the first to mention him and all I said was he looked promising.

Nobody had any idea he’d be cementing a place at this stage and in truth, he wouldn’t have had Lineham stayed fit.

Murphy was in nobody's plans including yours for this season so stop it with the hindsight stuff. You’re definitely not telling it how it is your spinning it in that regard.

When people come on the forum to suggest we sign a player in an attempt to increase our survival chances you are the one who constantly quotes the fact our finances are not like the other clubs therefore even you must accept that this increases the importance that we use it wisely. I think that this is not always the case especially this season. I would believe that the majority of clubs can make an error and just go with it we cannot. I am afraid that whoever is responsible for player signings have failed in the majority this season and now leaves us open to the possibility of relegation.