Really good signing for Hull IMO. He's not quite put it together in the first team for us yet but he has shown glimpses and props do tend to mature a bit later. He was an excellent academy player and pretty dominant at that level and sooner or later, I think he'll transfer that over to first team rugby. 

I'm really pleased to see Hull starting to get their act together. The game needs the biggest clubs to be as strong as possible and as Richie Myler said on the bench podcast yesterday, we only have 3 'really big' clubs in the game in the UK, in Wigan, Leeds and Hull FC. I could hear the TV's of St Helens, Warrington and East Hull turning over from my house. 

Good lad Harvie, plenty of time on his side. There are not a lot of good players on the homegrown market, particularly young ones, so Hull have done a good bit of business. I agree with Johnh we will need to invest in our pack for 2026, I suspect though that new recruits will have to come from the NRL.

The Vaughan signing and Walters move to prop make a bit more sense now. As things stand we'd look to have Havard, Thompson, Dupree, Mago and Walters as our first choice props, with back up from Eseh, Makin and McDermott. In the second row we'll have Faz, Nsemba, Vaughan, Hirst and Mason. Guys like Chan and Kerr and probably cover a bit of second row/loose forward. Looking at that, I would probably want to target one experienced signing to come in. I'd probably go for a second rower but you could go for a prop and then move Walters back to second row if needed. If Eseh and Chan were let go, then you'd need one of each IMO. 

I think it makes sense. The club will know where he's at in terms of development vs those below him (Makin and McDermott) and what his value is to us considering he's our 5th or 6th choice prop when all are fit, even excluding Byrne (1. Thompson, 2. Havard, 3. Dupree, 4. Mago, 5. Walters). We clearly have our eyes on someone (or two) to fill the gaps left by Byrne, Hill, Eseh and Chan, it's needed to keep the level of competition high and the likes of Dupree looking over his shoulder.


Good luck to him at Hull, hopefully they look after him well.

Think its a big blow personally - I'm sure the club wouldn't have wanted to lose both Byrne and Hill. Particularly given Havard's history of hamstring injuries. This was always going to happen at some point tho - I remember posting last year that something will have to give when the academy is producing so many good players that need and deserve game time. The salary cap also starts to bite harder when clubs achieve success. 

I wonder on what Myler bases his definition of a “big club”