Those are some different and more interesting points.

As was established through tireless repetition when the council underwrote the loan for our north stand, pretty much everything carries risk. Including, ironically, risk-avoidance or -minimization #FOMO.

Toronto are currently a well-resourced and ambitious club - good for them. We'll either stay up ('hurrah!') or go down ('ah well'). I doubt Peacock's list of contacts is an issue. I suspect it is actually fairly substantial, and even if it wasn't we enjoyed our best spell of recent times signing nearly all our players from one agent. Saying stuff like 'we've got a 5-year plan' to people you're offer a 2- or 3-year contract to is likely a bigger issue IMO.

You only got Kelly because of his repeated and escalating wazzockry, and a bit of light embarrassment and a little compromised integrity aside (with some honourable exceptions), it's mostly worked out well.

see what you mean . michaels,kelly ,watts,westerman etc,alot of them have baggage.even the great adamski is a criminal

Who are all these high calibre signings Toronto have brought in

Joe westerman.. .. Oh hang on..

#pray for torontos high calibre signings, stick to putting your gums around adamskis plums

Having seen almost all of Toronto's games this season and last, there most consistant best players hav been players like Beswick, Kay, Paterson and QLT. I really dont rate any of the so called "high calabre" players on what i have seen.

# pray for DGM

Stanley, Simms, Lussick, Mccrone, O Brien and Russel are all very good players, all of those have had very good careers in either SL or the NRL, are most are at a good age and would look good in SL.

I think they are a big threat to any SL clubs who are in the middle 8's.

I think you will be OK, as I think Widnes are the ones who will drop out, Salford might also join them, but they have some good players if they start to play, just in poor form at the moment, still looked strong in spellls against us.

Think Rovers will be Ok if they get Mcguire and Lunt playing.

Tompkins is Ok, nothing special any more and I'd be more worried about his playing ability than off field matters, but he has to be an improvement on Chris Clarkson.

Simms o brien and Russel are average at best and I don’t buy into just because they have NRL experience they are automatically good Kris Keating played in a grand final and Dane Tilse played well over a 100 first grade games

The thing with the 8s is that they’re so brief that one slightly surprising result has a potentially massive impact on your chances. They’re very tough to predict across the crucial positions in mid-table. At least they offer some excitement after what’ll effectively have been a sixth month pre-season. As was last year in fairness, but the psychology of a promotion push is different to a relegation battle.

I feel a bit for Clarkson because he’s not a bad player at all. He’s just deeply unspectacular, and we’ve got about seven of him. Mind you, without so much middling depth, we’d have struggled to field a 17 some weeks this year.

Tilse played more than 200 NRL games. Like Clarkson, he wasn’t a bad player and with some better quality and more energy/impact around him he’d have been alright. We just seem to have got addicted to bland workmanlike forwards.

Keating was a strange one.

I personally didn’t mind the much maligned Tilse he ended up been a bit of a scapegoat in the end he was better than Clinton and probably a lot cheaper

All three would improve the likes of Rover Widnes and Salford IMO.

Having watched Lussick and Stanley in the NRL, both good players who would/will do well in the NRL.

high calibre was quoted

Daves listed them out - most of them were signed during this season, and pretty much all of those listed would walk into Rovers’ 17.

I imagine you’ll be fine though. Widnes aren’t doing much in the way of recruitment and Salford look knackered. Toronto will replace one of those two IMO.

Lussick and Stanley both have over 100 NRL games each under their belts.

So Dane Tilse has as many NRL games as both of them combined and Russell and O’Brien and Simms definitely wouldn’t just walk into our team we’ve 4 better props than Simms and better backs than the other two

Simms better than Scruton
Russel better than Shaw

And Obrien would get in at halfback.

simms is well shot. with 7 or 8 due back for the middle 8s ,confident we will turn Toronto over ,think widnes and Salford will also

Simms is garbage and has been for a few years I wouldn’t have Russell in front of Shaw and I wouldn’t have O’Brien in the halves in front of Atkin or Maguire

I liked Tilse don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t cheap and would even argue that wouldn’t have been cheaper than Clinton.

He was definitely cheaper than Clinton

So is Scruton, at least Simms off good leadership which Rovers seem to be lacking.

Will have to agree to disagree about Russell.

Atkins can't even get in front of Tommy Lee at halfback, I quite like the look of Atkins, but he is a bit raw and at this stage O Brien is a better player, I don't think it's any coincidence Salfords form has dropped off massively since he left.

I think that's more so on tommy lee's failure to be dynamic out of dummy half, but he does provide some direction from scrum half and done ok so can't knock him for that. However, as sheens alludes to today when lunt is back atkin will move back to scrum half to work with mcguire.

O'brien is a bang average scrum half, but a much better fullback. He would not get in my team above our half backs and he wouldn't get in at fullback over quinlan who has been excellent.

Russell - rocks and diamonds that kid. Does something excellent then something down right schoolboy. I probably would have him over shaw though such is shaws defensive liabilities.

Simms - 5 years a go maybe. if you replaced him for scurton you probably would not get any better, but probably not any worse. They are equal at best. If Scruton can pick up his form from last year when he monstered leighs big pack twice in two games, I'd pick him.

The only reason Atkin is playing at Hooker is because Lee is crap at hooker - slow etc. He's not much cop at HB either (loads of hospital passes) but Blair is bailing us out there (again). Marsh offers nothing either (at SL level).