one answer to that Sally is a Mr hicks. He was a little unknown who turned out well you know the rest

Agree with most of that, but a bit unfair on Goodwin. Certainly not in his prime, but a solid player. Not prolific but 200 NRL appearances and 10 for New Zealand, with 1 try every 3 games is better than some of our centres and his defence and ground work are quality. There aren’t many NRL players available these days but Goodwin is not a journeyman reject and I think he’ll go well - nothing spectacular but a cut above what we’ve had since the days of Bridge on that right side.

Gidley came from a wooden spoon NRL team and made the SL dream team plus 2 finals the next year with us.



Parramatta had a pretty poor record then Sandow came over here and lit up SL.



Wests finished 10th then 9th, then an aging Hodgson came over to SL and won MOS.



I would argue that NRL team records and even age have little relevance to how they'll go in SL.

I expect our performance levels to be much better, I don't mind them losing to a better team on the day, that's sport. I don't expect out attack to be fully fluent at this stage when Roberts hasn't played with any of his team mates yet.



My reservation about this season is that I think our squad is a bit small, we will get a few injuries at some point and we could struggle at the business end of the season.

....that's where that tiny bit of spare salary cap (£50k apx) could show it's worth. It won't buy a feather duster now but it could buy class as the split comes if required!!

Old Sally C. is a real bundle of joy isn't he?The idea that decent players never play for clubs who finish mid-table or near the bottom of the league is a flawed generalisation. Bit of garbage wrapped up with a few stats.

Saints wasn't high flying when Barba joined for sure.

I’ll be interested to see whether Barba can do for Saints what Sandow did for us. Not quite as many tricks in his bag compared to Sandow but devastating runner and probably more focussed and less prone to ‘outside influences’ - despite his drugs history. I think he’ll last longer than Sandow too.

We seem to have attracted so many imports with problems that the RFL could do worse than approach the Priory as a main sponsor.

Ive said it before and I'll say it again. Rugby players are thick.

Just some are much thicker than others.

I don't think that's the case is it? The salary cap value of a player is based on his full salary as if he'd been here all year, for example I don't think we could sign someone for 2 months of the year and pay him £20k per month. His salary cap value would not be £40k, it would be £240k.



That's my understanding at any rate...?

Correct. Section 5.4.2.



Cap value for a player is calculated as what their annual gross payments would be.