What's to say he won't get a contract for next season ?? Radford got one before the season started and we have a whole host of players signed up for next season who are more ordinary than him !!!!

I thought he had already come out pre season and stated he was returning to aus? Might be wrong mind.

I thought I remembered that as well TBH.

Gutted for the bloke. Always puts in 100% effort and comes across as a real professional. A real shame that it looks as if he won't get to put in a farewell performance.

Seems the farewell perfomances in recent seasons never seem to occur,. How many of our imports recently left injured? Too many.

He appeared to have changed his mind and wanted an extension I think. He is obviously a total professional and always gives 100% and that would probably have been enough in our club's eyes. He would probably have been given another year.

Gutted for the bloke

Hope he has a speedy recovery

Our biggest loss to a long term injury this season. Our prop division looks extremely week now. Dowes is good, and Maloney is looking orite but is unexperienced at this level. King and Thackray are crap and Moa is only played 15 minutes a game for some reason, he looked fit enough to play more to me (until he plays more at SL level, I'm not taking his reserve game stints into account)

Thackray was very good against Wire and Kingy did qute well in the second half too when we were up against it. Dowes has been pretty consistent and Maloney's performances have been encouraging so far. Moa is still unknown but he will be getting fitter and is playing more minutes in the reserves now, plus when he did play for the first team he did nothing wrong at all other than not playing enough minutes which was not his fault but the coaches.

We don't look too bad in the front row imo.

We dont but Cusack has arguably been our best prop this year.

I agree, he is a big loss but my point was at least we do have plenty of options.

Well said - agree totally

I disagree Thackray was 'very good', personally felt he was orite against Wire but thats one game, not the whole season or overall during his second stint with the club. He is very inconsistant and his impact is minimal. King is very lazy and slow, and lacks any kind of impact nowadays. I agree on Moa but for some reason he only played 15 minute stints then was dropped to the reserves which I dont agree with and still dont agree with.
We look poor in the front row, very poor. We have numbers, but lack quality outside Dowes. Maloney is looking orite as I've said, but he is still developing

We started the season with Cusack and Dowes in the starting line-up. We won five on the trot and a lot of pundits were talking about how big the Hull pack were. Then Sam Moa came along and we played him in tiny spells at the expense of Thacks which to my mind was disastrous (although losing Burnett simultaneous with that had a very negative impact) and then Kingy disappeared from selection. Kingy finally came back against Rovers and made a huge impact in the second half. I too think Maloney is developing well but my concern is that we have made some bizzarre selection calls and followed it up with very odd interchanges during matches and I just reckon the team is being consistently disrupted even without the injuries. A scrum-half needs to know his pack and they need to know him - please give us some consistency. By the way, after the Wire match, even I cannot defend Thorman - he was woeful.

Our pack lacks any kind of impact whatsoever. Against Wire, you couldn't say any of our forwards had a particularly bad game, but we never had an answer to Carvell and Morley when they got a head of steam up.

We simply don't have a Carvell, Fa'asavalu, Paleasina, Puletua type of player.

TBF not many clubs do.

Pretty unfair in my opinion. I'd rather we had an injury to our front row than anywhere else... except maybe the coach

The successful ones do.

And Wire.

Cleary..

I think most clubs can point to [isome[/i impact from the bench. They might not be in the same bracket at the players I mentioned earlier, but they at least have the potential to change things a bit.

Manu, Moa and Luauki all would add impact. About time we gave Moa another shot to help bring balance to the props. Thacks adds impact imo when used off the bench and King does at times too.

Manu would add impact if the coaching staff used him correctly. Lauaki ought to add some if he ever arrives. Moa has the potential to, but he's very much unproven.

I would disagree that anyone else in our current squad adds the kind of impact required to change a game. Our forwards are all too similar. We have loads of steady, up the middle type players (some of whom have the odd game where they make a little more impact) and no one who consistently punches holes in the opposition defence.

I'd agree with all that TBH.

Thacks adds some impact, but he's not the kind of forward who bursts through tackles and hurts the opposition. King is just to small to be an impact prop in today's game IMO, although he occasionally puts in a good hit up.

We need Lauaki badly, and we also need either someone similar or Moa to achieve his potential.

Thacks is a second rower

Watch Thacks against Wire and he was certainly busting through tackles and taking us forward. He lacks consistency but he does add impact.