Anybody think that Potter might be planning on using young Southerwood there. Obviously he looked tiny when he played, but a good pre season could see him put some muscle on.

Didnt Medders say the original plan was too use him this season?

Obviously not all the time too.

I think we'll see much more of him but I do think we need another player as cover as he's bound to get targetted and will tire over the course of the season.

Anthony Thackerey maybe?

I'd still rather get a new stand-off, but if there isn't one available, then I'd hope we plan to use Southernwood, Addy, Sykes & Kearney but with the last 2 covering for when the first two need a break.

I would imagine that Addy is going to feature there for a lot of the season.

Perhaps Anthony Thackeray is the type of young British backs that Old Faithless thinks we should be signing.

Don't think anyone would complain too much if any of southernwood,kearney,addy or sykes play standoff alongside orford. The problem is whilst they are all good supporting players none of them are creative enough to play halfback in the event of orford picking up another injury. Southernwood may be the long term solution to this, but in the short term we'd look a lot better if we had a creative standoff on the books. Difficult balancing act for potter, having sufficient strength in depth without blocking the path of the likes of southernwood/addy too much.

Also depends who's available. Some cover is a must though!

Whilst im happy with the signings so far i agree a stand off is a must,but do you think its possible that if we are to spend the full cap & with who has come off the wage bill so far we may be targeting a top British stand off ? cant think our current new signings will be commanding that much.

I've been wondering the same thing tbh. If you take the figure we were rumoured to be under the cap last year of 200k to be accurate then we have the followings in/outs. then speculating wildly as to wages we have following.

nero out - he was on a decent deal so I'd guess his wage would cover walker ( say 90k, who will be on a lowish deal due to his injury) and ainscough (again lowish deal due to age) combined.

menzies out - ( say 100k , again a high wage earner. would guess money freed up from him leaving would cover elimas wage plus upgrades to kopczak and finnigan.

then we assume reardon (say 20k, low deal due to injury) and sheriffe (say 30k, again lowish deal) are leaving freeing up another 50k. giving us about 250k of cap space to play with. Out of that we have to factor in langleys upgrade, so say 230k to play with. plus any more money freed up by anymore departures. So I'd guess we're looking at either one top notch player plus a couple of squad fillers or 2 fairly decent signings although not in top bracket.

Seeing as we are taking a punt on some signings with 1 year contracts, i would take a punt on Anthony Thackeray from Widnes. Let Orford run the show and do the bossing about, and let Thackeray take the line on with his speed and side step.

I won't pretend to know numbers of what people are earning, but I'll be absolutely amazed it Langley's pay rise was only 20k a year.