looks like he will be a real find. If he can play blike that after 3 days in the country what will he be like later. Look forward to seeing him again.

on a side note Trout needs a new haircut looks like a cross between Phil Oakey and Eraserhead.

I thought he did show that he could be a good find, his off loads I particular liked when coming into the tackle

he looks a good strong runner and I do think we could have a real gem here, having watched a few you tube clips he has impressed me more today than them

one good thing that came from a shocking performance today

Plus side.. Tautai an amazing find. Down side..will be at a top side in 2 mins if that off the plane performance is anything to go by. Trout...another too small player. When will we learn that in SL size matters???

Looked great, I bet he's wondering what the hell he's let himself in for!

Bet he wishes he took the option to sign for Cas.
Give him a few games and Agar will have coached him down to our level.

too early good start but lets look at him after 10 games

Agreed its far too early, that said he played like a derby game meant something to him.

One of 2 or 3 players who played like he meant it; it's a poor state of affairs when a bloke who's just got off a plane from the other side of the world is more fired up for a local derby than your regular lot.

The one positive out of a thoroughly depressing 80 minutes.

If you dont mind me asking who were the other two and the worst performers because after yesterdays defeat i got slaughtered

Not a fan of the signing in principle, and our ongoing insistance of importing players (particularly mid season) but he did seem to put a very good shift in all things considered - showed some nice touches and good enthusiasm and was probably the highlight of a rather crappy 80mins.

Well played lad.

Don't worry old cocker if he keeps it up you lot will soon be after his services

It's a pretty simple situation. If the homegrown players can't cut it - which they can't - then I'd rather we get imports in that can. Nationality doesn't matter one iota to me. It is the responsibility of homegrown players first and foremost to show they can cut the mustard. It's no surprise that nearly all our imports are the better players in our team: Aiton, T. Smith, Collis, Tautai (yesterday), Poore (probably been our best prop all year). Our forwards have been dire this year in my opinion and the disruption in the halves with injuries to Smith and Sykes have compounded this. Kyle Wood isn't super league standard in anything but his pace. Kyle Trout lacks strength, go forward, pace, an offload game, i just don't understand what he does offer apart from effort. Lee Smith is an average centre and absolutely turd in any other position. Raleigh looks like he could be past it. Amor - not consistent enough this season. Cockayne and Fox are liabilities defending kicks. Mathers is just steady away. All in all, the team has no quality outside of the import contingent in my opinion.

Not a bad assessment. The way i see it is that we have 3 groups of players in our squad; The overseas imports, British players signed from other clubs and our own home grown talent. Now, rank those three groups in order of best to worst according to the number of players making the best contributions, regardless of team form, and I think people would have to concede that the rankings would be as follows:

1) The overseas imports
2) Brits from other clubs
3) our own talent pool

Take aiton, tim smith, poore, ali and collis out of our team and we'd be a lot closer to the wooden spoon than we already are. Now look at the Brits from other clubs...mathers, lee smith, charlie, kirmond etc... they're all holding their place down and contributing more than the talent that we're developing ourselves. Annakin aside, our 'stars of the future' are all struggling to stand out in the championship, and for that reason we cannot just give them all a go like some people are calling for. They woud quite simply be out of their depth.

Id love us to be a top 6 team on a regular basis and we're currently living proof that we cant achieve that with what weve got, nevermind promoting youth. The only way we're going to make those strides is to attract better british players from other clubs and a higher class of overseas import.

I cannot argue with that Adam.
We need the best team we can acquire, wherever the players come from.
Not saying bring in dross.
Get some success.
I've only been waiting since the 60's.
Then we can damn well invest money required into more home grown quality players.

Exactly Belle Vue Lifer.

You have based that on about 20 minutes of rugby

"Durham Giant" looks like he will be a real find. If he can play blike that after 3 days in the country what will he be like later. Look forward to seeing him again.''


One of Millward's better decisions. Losing him was the price we paid to get a change of coach unfortunately.

Kirmond and Anakin appeared to be putting it in; that's the best I can do.

That's fair enough, you pays your money you takes your choice - if you are happy then your opinion is valid, but I think it is far, far too simplistic. Personally the game as a whole is as at least equally important to me as Trinity is, I appreciate that I maybe in a minority in this respect but thats my opinion. I love the game, absolutely love it, and want enough cash in the game to enable these amazing athletes (yesterday excluded of course) to be better rewarded for what they put themselves through for our entertainment. I want enough money to be in the game to ensure the best athletes in schools from all over the country want to be RL players because it can , this can only come on the back of a thriving International Game and this in turn can only come on the back of an increased pool of domestic playing talent and I mean increased in terms of numbers and quality. I believe that every pro club has a role to play in the development of the game and they have a responsibility to add value to the league and the sport in general.

Importing (another) player from down under because they are better than we have at this moment in time is like using a sticking plaster over a gushing wound that is hemmorhaging blood at an alarming rate. The fundamental question of "why" we can't produce players when most other clubs can, particularly when one club that is almost a carbon copy of ours only a couple of miles away seems to be able to do.

We had a champion junior side not many years ago, what has happened to this crop of players? What is wrong with the systems we have in place as a club to produce players that means that we cannot convert good juniors into effective SL class players?

The other argument is that we are always going to be poor relations to the big city slickers who can pay the wages and offer glory - and more often than not when we do unnearth a gem then they will be ripe for the picking. This is likely to be true at least until the stadium gets sorted, whenever this may be. So the only thing we can do to avoid a slow painful death is to develop a constant stream of players to replace the ones that go for whatever reason.

Fair enough assessment - cannot argue with the "ranks" at all.

The $64,000 question is why can we not produce players?

I imagine it's all down to a lack of finance. Something I'm hoping will all change when Newmarket is built. In essence, Rugby League has a few growing similarities to football in the sense that, we are starting to see the same teams compete for the top 5 or 6 year in year out. They are the teams who have good financial backers, nice stadiums and are traditional rugby towns/cities. Salford will probably break into that mould when they spend some cash and the only way I fear the teams at the bottom will catch up is when they too get money to spend. The danger is clubs spending money to keep the pace that they cannot afford. To live within our means it's fairly obvious we're not going to be competing at the level of the top 6 for a long time yet.

And where do Castleford fit into your 'financial model'?

Look at the league table.