Would rather trust Steve McNamaras judgement on a player than Smith.
Hope it works out for him
I can see several of the youger players leaving end of this season or before including Balmforth unless Smith does the honourable thing and resigns following the game on friday

He's signed for Saint Esteve XIII Catalan, who are the Dragons' feeder club in effect.

Not according to Steve McNamara on the Catalan website.
Its on their front page announced as a signing for the club

Catalans Dragons are pleased to announce the signing of Damel Diakhate for the end of the 2024 season.

The French prop who played for Hull FC, 22, has signed a one-year deal with the club.

Damel Diakhate said : “I am very happy to join the Catalan Dragons, as a French player, it has always been a goal of mine to join this club. Now I have to work hard and earn my spot at the top level. I would like to thank the president, the coach and his staff and my agent for this opportunity, I will do everything I can to make the most out of it

Just going on the Hull Live article. I think the French set up is a little different to UK Super League clubs. Either way I don't think we'll be seeing Damel any time soon.

The biggest signing and the only one to talk about is the
Head Coach

A HC focused solely on a
WINNING culture

Charles’ performance today was interesting. Still only slight and will struggle against bigger players but deserves a run out.

If he continues to perform do we risk not using a quota spot on a 7 giving him a shot. Would free up an extra quota spot for centre/back row

Got run over for that try, but 2 mins later, makes a try saving tackle on the same player.

Still need a 7, but happy for him to backup Trueman next season.

He had a couple more try savers too. Getting under Lewis when he tried to burrow over and also stopped Parcel from getting it down. Handles Tanginoa on a couple of other occasions.
If he can put a little bit of size on and get a good run of games (while not OVERplaying him too soon) he's gonna be a great player.

He's not ready to be a regular but has shown he is a capable stand in for a few weeks.

I don't see a better option until Trueman is back.

Need to get Charles signed up to a long deal now, even a moderate bump up in pay will do it. Still likely need an overseas no7 in the interim but we rarely produce a half back and need to avoid the risk of him going.

He should keep his spot until at least Walker is back and we can move Hoy. Brown should stay at hooker. Charles has nothing on him atm so doesn’t need overplaying but you can just tell he’s a natural half. The kick through for the McIntosh bombed try was just instinct.

Agree, you can't coach that you either have it or you dont

Just a thought on Jack Charles but I wonder who he supports?
With his dad been a former HKR player I do wonder if he'd like to follow his dads footsteps and as soon (if) an opportunity came up he'd jump ship to Rovers.
Doesn't help us that they're also the more attractive club at present. Just think if he went there he wouldn't get any game time like most of their youngsters.
We could do with getting him tied down pretty soon.

Jacks a Hull fan.

I'm pretty sure he is tied down to a long term deal, not surprisingly though the club haven't announced it, just the way they like to do things, keep the fans in the dark.

One positive I think we have over Rovers is giving young players a chance, one upside to being rubbish.

Rovers don't have a great record of bringing their own players through, as example signing Reynolds.

Okay great stuff, thanks for the info!
My worry is that we could potentially finally bring through a good half back and it turns out hes a Rovers fan all along and wants to go there.
I know there's more to signing a contract than just who you support (Mikey Lewis is an example), but if you're a Rovers fan and they have money to burn, and they're a better team than us, then yeah it would he hard to compete with that.

Your giving these youngsters a chance this season because you have little choice Dave, your owners doing things on the cheap as you all know, squad wise you may have gone big but there isnt many first team 'men' in there is their? You was always going to be forced into playing the kids as soon as injuries struck.
I'll definitely acknowledge though that at Rovers we don't have great record with bringing the youth through, we have a few promising young lads at the minute but yes id like to see more coming through.

Neither do we. Prior to this year when, like you said we've had to, I can only see Houghton, Lane and Fash that would be deemed as first team regulars that have come through the academy AFAIK. Jack Brown is getting there and Litten every now and again but not a great turn over.

If the youth is the direction we're going and targeting this batch coming through as being the core of the squad in 5 years time then fair enough, I'd 100% get behind that. All we want is some honesty about that.

Every team has little choice but to bring academy players through. It's the way forward. There are so many financial benefits to bringing through your own players. They offer dispersions to the salary cap. They free up quota and marquee player spots. They want to play for the club they've grown up supporting so their contracts are easier to negotiate.
I don't want to derail to thread too much, but Rovers are currently following the Warrington model of a few years ago and just buying a team. Abdull left, and that is the perfect time to see what Ellis could have done, and that would only have been for the odd game when injuries/suspensions hit. Instead they went out and bought Reynolds who is a garbage player and probably no better than what Ellis could do.
Finances might have forced our hand the last couple of years into playing some more academy players, but 100% in the long run it will help alleviate financial pressure on the club.

Wakey allegedly interested in Jack Brown and Lane.

Isn't that what I said?

A strong academy is of benefit to the clubs who can retain their best products. It's more than a bit disappointing that Rovers academy has never really approached parity with Hull's in the modern era - never mind Saints' or Wigan's. The academy derby was won 8-28 by Hull yesterday.
The problem comes when you rely on it because the outputs of even the best academies are uneven. We rode the patience train to the Championship in 2016. Your low-key recruitment after your cup wins was predicated to a large degree by an expectation (rather than just a hope) that you had a group of academy players who would step up to be frontline players. People talk a lot about pathways being blocked… if Reynolds were really “garbage” and Ellis is/gets to be good enough, then it should be a very surmountable obstacle for the youngster.

They can have them, but 2 get Scott free. All three of them are average on a good day, poor the rest of the days

I'm not too bothered, but that's another 3 players to replace, do you trust the club to replace these with better players.

We have to sort out our use of quota places, overall apart from the odd one, it's been pretty poor for a few years.

if pearson or the rest of the clowns in charge had any real intention to save this season,whatever the cost carlos would be on a plane back home now to use the quota spot on a half.the reality is pearson doesnt give a monkeys.as long has hes saving cash hes quite happy to coast this season.hes got all the season pass money.