What would be the general consensus if this guy joins for next season?

He received a call from Gawy the night after the Hudds defeat last week with a pretty straight forward question “Are you interested in playing for Leeds next year?”. This came directly from his wife, she does my girlfriend’s nails.

I wouldn't want him he is pretty decent but imo I'd prefer to see Delaney ,Ablett & Achurch as our BR plus we have Foster to come back ,Jjb still has a year or 2 plus Walters ,England & Milton are showing stacks of potential.
There's also S.Ward and IF he isn't seen as a FT HB then Sutcliffe aswell.
Not even mentioned Clarkson or Mcdermotts penchant for playing Bailey & Singleton at Loose but for me Clarkson ,Kirke & Bailey can move on.

Yeh, I pretty much agree with that.

I think once we confirm Huby signing either Kirke or Bailey will be moved on.

Would prefer better. I think we should sign someone for the backrow, as I don't think we have enough variation of player there in the club. Chan is the type we need, a line breaking offloading back rower, but I just think we could do better if we were really looking.

Huby? He has signed for the Giants hasn't he?
Gotcha Achurch has an offload in him and was looking decent before injury struck ,Cuthbertson has the offload in his armoury and IF England breaks through that kid offloads and line breaks for fun.

I must admit I actually forgot about Achurch. He is the only one who is different to what we have in the back row.

I don't think England will stay with us to be honest, so wasn't including him.

Chan has been awful this season, a mistake ridden penalty machine.

I heard somewhere (not necessarily anywhere of good provenance) that he was going to stay at Cas after all. Has anything been confirmed? We were mentioned in earlier rumours, but those seem to have gone away.

I quite like Jason Chan, but I also don't think in a salary capped sport that the back row is where the most urgent investment will be needed at the end of the season, unless it was for a real gamebreaker, and I don't think Chan is one of those. Not many of them around.

If we were going to get Chan the time to do it was when we signed Hauraki instead of him from the Crusaders when they went belly-up.
Too late now.

We are signing vainikolo and fielden so don't need him

I thought Lomu was a done deal? Do we need Vainikolo as well? Don't forget Wendell Sailor will definitely play for us loads of times as a dual code player, and not just once in a Boxing Day friendly.

To be honest I don't think we need Chan, he's an ok player but nothing special. For next season we have: Singleton, Peacock, Leuluai, Cuthbertson, Bailey, Clarkson, Kirke, Foster, Jones-Buchanan, Yates, Achurch, Delaney and Minchella who can all play somewhere up front. Another forward isn't the problem.
We need a good half-back combination to fill in when McGuire and Burrow are gone (which arguably in McGuires case is already!)

Kirke is terrible and should be moved on.Bailey is teetering on the dispensable too lately but was decent against Hudds when again he just got his head down and did his job without the nonsense which is what we all know he can do, but frustratingly doesnt do often enough.hopefully he will continue in that vein for rest of season.

Plenty of names there however Bailey, Clarkson & Kirke are not good enough. Foster, Yates and Minchella still to be judged. That Leaves JP, Singleton, Kylie and Cuthbertson as the 4 props that have anything about them. Which highlights that we certainly need another name in there.

Back row we're good for. I thought Josh Walters was outstanding vs Huddersfield, for me definitely looks a better player than Minchella and Foster.

We also have Baldwinson to come back into contention next season.

We need 3rd & 4th props. At the moment we only have 2, Peacock & Leuluai, and they'll both be gone soon. Kirke & Bailey simply aren't stepping up as they should. Even against Hudds where I thought they were better they still didn't provide enough support to Peacock & Leuluai. Kirke did his 1 good run and then nothing else. Bailey was ok going forward but was poor in defence again, he keeps getting stepped around.
Hopefully Cuthbertson might fill one of those gaps and Singleton might in the future but he's still a work in progress.
So, whilst there are issues with our halves, I still think the big problem is in the forwards and specifically the props.

I just get the impression that Singleton doesn't fit somehow. The only way the lad is going to improve is to play first team rugby. His minutes allowed are poor in order to aid this improvement. Every time he has started, he appears to have starred, every time he gets less minutes his contribution is deemed not good enough. There is something telling in that.

As for the other "fringe" forwards, it works the same. People can not keep listing names as back up when they are unproven. Until they get a chance to prove themselves, they will be still unproven, and therefore not really logical to list as we have enough there.

Cant argue with that

Another McShane - clash with the coach? In nobody's eyes can Singleton's contribution be less than Kirke's yet Kirke appears to receive preferential treatment from the coach.

I like the look of Chan, but still, this doesn't seem like a priority signing or an improvement on what we have already.

I might take him over Clarkson or if JJB decides to call it a day though.

Is that even allowed?

As long as he's out of contract at the end of this season (which IIRC Chan is) then a player can be approached by anyone after 1st May.

Think Chan would be an excellent signing and give us the grunt and spark, that we so desperately lack in the back row, with the exception of Ablett.

Achurch for me is nowhere near the requisite quality we need in the back row, if he is to be our 'x factor' as it were. For me, he's overweight, too slow and too error prone. In his time at the Rhinos, can count on the fingers of one hand how many good games he's had. Notwithstanding that, I understand his attitude behind the scenes isn't where it should be and hence why McDermott has never fully gone with him as it were.

Let's not forget Mitch is only not playing at the moment due to injury. Up until three weeks ago he'd started something like 10 in a row.

IMO he's a quality member of our squad