You'd sacrifice four players for one 32-year-old player when our squad already lacks depth? What will happen when he gets injured?

But he's not going to come out and say he will is he . To be one of the top teams and challenging for trophys I reckon it's the only route we can take .

doubt it, ellis will be looking at 3 years on top whack...simple as....

Pearce, Green, Cunningham, Brown?

Like Manu, who was quiet against Wire because they had 3 or 4 men on him every time he got the ball? Oppositions teams know how strong our left side is and plan to defend that. From what I saw on Friday, Seymour was balancing it out between left and right, so the oppo had less idea of where the threat would come from. Admittedly our right isn't as strong, but I'm confident it will improve as the season goes on. No trophies are available in Feb, so lets see how we go.

Bowden.

Do any of those have a Super League game between them? I'm all for bringing the youngsters through, but we need some back up with SL experience.

He will already have as deal in place I think and it would not suprise me if its Wire. They will have some space on the cap ( sic) available for 2013 and he could be a good high profile replacement for say Morley.

I would not risk spending too much on our cap for a player his age and position, our priorities are in other area's. He is a high profile player , he does bring with him a wealth of experience, kudos and underlines our intentions to becoming a force in the sport again.

hes already said he wants to finish his career at cas but money talks. I dnt think we need him personally alot more options out there and alot of other positions need priority. imo moa will definatly go at end of season but omeley i think will have 1 more year atleast and hes been the best forward so far this year. we need a top class right centre and then we will have a right hand side aswell which will be more confusing for defences no more predictable left hand sided play its not working like last year!!!

I think it's a bit early yet to say the right hand side is not working. Imo we have tried to ship it right with Seymor loitering and bagging 2 tries on Friday whilst probing around that right hand channel. Time will tell though and I can also understand your concerns.

Plus Tickle got a double on the right edge against Warrington.

Think thats down to Horne and McKinnon not clicking as our left hand attack always works the best when the fullback is out the back behind Manu giving us a 3 on 2.

i suppose but if you look at the right hand side when it gets shipped out theres martin on the wing against 2 or 3 of there defenders and sharp is nowere to be seen martin should be drawing in players and putting sharp in the corner but its not been even looked at yet it gets to martin and comes back to the left edge again theres no creativity on the right side id like to see turner have the right centre spot again for me he is better out of him and martin

Not sure whether posted elsewhere but Gary Hetherington's interested as are Cas and Richard Agar. No mention of us at all.
[urlhttp://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/castleford-tigers/chase_is_on_as_gareth_ellis_plans_his_super_league_return_1_4295172[/url
"His agent David Howes said: “The race to sign Gareth Ellis starts now.

“He is a Cas lad, he enjoyed his time at Wakefield and he thoroughly enjoyed his time at Leeds and it was a big decision to leave.

“I will be staggered if we don’t have conversations with all three. They would all have a reason to make an approach and each has got a different calling card.

“Wakefield are under new ownership, they are spending up to the salary cap and there’s the possibility of a new ground, Castleford have got the possibility of a new ground and they are his home town club."

Also on the Leeds board apparently Ellis' dad says Leeds is his preferred option. D'oh!

Not sure if it's been mentioned on here, but Bomber mentioned we were interested on BBC text this morning. Plue YEP doesn't go outside West Yorks

Yes, I heard McRae on RH. But I guess my point is that his agent has talked about Ellis' links to Cas, Leeds and Wakey. A sad day when Richard Agar is in with a better shout.

He'd be ordinary in under half a season under agar.

And wakey spending the full cap? Surely not with the squad agar has assembled?

Read the YEP when I used to go to my mums. Nothing about anything outside West Yorks (even Bradford rarely gets a look in as they have the T&A), so I wouldnt read too much into it. No mention of the Wire link?

That was my immediate thought. If that squad is costing the full cap they must be using a worse wage structure than we did under the previous regime.

But we've been there and know what happens, the opposition stroll through on a regular basis. Our attack has started slowly all over the pitch, it's to be expected with new players and new systems, but one of the biggest areas of improvement for me has been the right side defence, along with the all-round improvement in Sharp and his confidence level. To me there is no coincidence that this has happened with the absence of Turner, the Bradford game shined a huge spotlight on it to remove any remaining doubt. I personally think it would be lunacy to go backwards now as some sort of panic measure, we need to stick with it for a few more games at least. There is absolutely no point in going back to what has been proven not to work just because an alternative is not yielding instant perfect results.

Turner is simply not good enough, a prime example of the sort of player we need to replace with better if we seriously want to challenge the top 4.

I think if hull are to land ellis they need to throw serious money onto the table..

ellis is a quality player there no doubt about that but he 31 this year and knowing our luck get injured in his first game.

i think we need to start finding the best young players who are about to reach there peak and throw money at them as they will be the future.

I think we have a good chance, with Gentle's link and Pearson's wallet. We have to be involved with signing a player of his calibre. Early days yet, we'll see what happens.

you could be right about martin time will tell,just find it strange that a player who was in the top 25 try scorers in super league last season,without even playing the full season is being talked about as "not good enough".amazing!

I see your point but with our current squad i'd be tempted to go out and sign the best possible 17 available then let our youngsters cover the suspensions/injuries.

Currently on full time deals are

Lyne
Lineham
Crooks
Cunningham
Briscoe
Nicklas
Ellis
Bowden
Cunningham
Green
Pearce
Kent
Brown

Our squad could on paper challange for the top 6 but i'd rather have a 17 who could beat anyone on their day, One out one in.

If it was just about tries we'd have been better off keeping Craig Hall, he managed a similar return in 2008 (13 in 21 games), on the back of 7 in 13 in 2007 and followed by 10 in 14 in 2009. The problem is that both have consistently been defensive weaknesses. I appreciate that centre is possibly the hardest position in which to defend, but that is why it is vital that players are positionally sound in order to give themselves the best chance of defending well. We need to bring in someone with a good all-round game to play there and not make do with someone who is good in one direction but struggles in the other.

I don't actually think Martin is good enough for where we want to be either, but at this moment in time he looks like being the best option for our team. We need to let both go at the end of the season and use the combined money to find the right replacement.