Realistically, and ideally, Hanbury would be my 6 next year, here's hoping!

The reason Hanbury excites me so is that he can play 7 or 6 equally well and is a very good allround player, which will help immensley to bring through yougsters like yates or charnock into the halfs when injuries occur. I really hope we get him for next year. REALLY.

I agree sh*te at 6, sh*te at 7.

Come on we can do better than that, he has the look of a lot of players we signed in the 80's and very early 90's.

The love in for him astonishes me. Precisely the sort of player we DON'T need.

Reporter says he's signed. Doesn't say if he's coming over now. I hope he is. That's the dealbreaker for me i.e. if he's not then we should be scouting for a bit longer given League Freak's feedback on him.

So you're the bloke who reads his tripe, I assumed there must be someone who did.

To be fair to him, he's a far harder working version of me. A lot of what he puts is accurate, it's just wrapped up in the whole persona thing. His comments on Walsh are backed up by the likes of Andrew Johns, Mal Meninga, Brett Kimorley and Brad Fittler, who do have some credibility.

It appears to be a very, very risky signing. He has been widely criticised for his performances this season and a lot of the criticism is very worrying. Respected commentators talk of his refusal to take the line on, his inability to organise, the lack of any sort of running game and his positional kicking. In fact the only area of his game that ever gets any praise is his attacking kicks, namely chips to the corner.

I've said previously I've not seen enough of him to make any real judgement on him. But I hope Saints aren't also in that position. If we're signing him because he's the only NRL halfback available, then it could be another costly mistake. We were well and truly stung by Lance Hohaia and his agent and this on the face of it looks like it could be another similar situation. Our desperation for a halfback puts the club in a terrible position.

If thats indeed the case, and he is signed, then we need to welcome it and at least give him a chance, despite (my) reservations about his long kicking game and not taking the line on (he doesn't like being tackled at all apparently).
He may surprise us and be brilliant; in any event he has got to be some improvement.

I see we are getting the prelimanary digs in early.

Can we at least let him lace his boots first.

As for coming this year, that would require one to leave and for us to have cap space left.

Plenty cap space, it's the quota that would cause an issue.

One thing I trust him on is his assessment of Penrith and Matthew Elliot.

I think that's a bit of a silly statement to be honest.

I remember on here being impressed by a YouTube clip of Lance Hohaia and being subsequently ridiculed - as per usual - for my belief that he could be good in the halfback position. I've learned my lesson from that and would rather look criticially and with an open mind at a prospective player (and nothing has been said by the club at all on this - it's all speculation begun by Nosey Parker in League Weekly!) than be fooled again.

I'm no longer willing to gloss over potential pitfalls in a prospective player and that those who know him are saying publically that he doesn't take on the line and cannot organise (the latter being a quality we very deeply need) leaves me feeling uneasy.

But this is just a rumour and so maybe we aren't signing him after all but have someone else in mind who we don't know about.

I thinkwe need to keep a foot in both camps, let's not presume he's going to single handedly solve all our problems, but similiary, we should be able to assume he can do the job of a scrum half. If we compliment this signing by shipping the OOC deadwood and improving the two areas we're lacking (front row and the other half back),we should be fine in terms of a playing roster.

Like I said easier in this thread, I don't know what to make of Walsh. I have friends in OZ who say he's pretty decent and will do a good job for us but then you see the TV pundits Verdict on him.

One things for sure, we are in dire need of a halfback and he's one but this signing has to be the correct one. When we signed hohaia, I said at the time, this could set us back years and I was right!

The difference here, Luke Walsh plays the position we need and lance was trying out a new position.

Without being big headed, my gut feeling is usually correct with signings and young players coming thru And my gut feeling on Luke Walsh is that he will be good for us.

Silly statement or not, it seams somewhat unfair that people (most who have never seen the lad or heard of him), are already out with the knifes, before we have even confirmed (as a club) that we are interested, never mind put in an offer.

There does seam to be an agenda to rubbish anything the club may try to do. The signing of Lance would have been great, if he had come to play fullback for a retiring Wellens. The fact we signed him as a half, but then 'discovered' he was not a half. Is what was poor about that signing.

If we are signing a half, then I would not expect a Lance type error.

But there isnt a single person showing a knife anywhere! That's why I found your comment a bit silly. All people are doing is expressing concern at reports from those - including his present coach - who actually know the player and have known him since his junior days.

I'm concerned to read that he doesn't take on the line, except every now and again. But I'm more concerned that he isn't an organiser, as a recent report suggested. We desperately need an organiser and we desperately need to know that the 7 we are recruiting is an organiser. I'd have no problem with him being shy of the line (assuming we chose a complementary 6) if he was a great organiser and a good tactical kicker (but apparently he is limited in respect of his kicking too!).

You're right: we don't know this player. And that is why the comments of those who do are causing concern to some of us who aren't afraid to look at the realities.

If he is as bad as Leaguefreak and the pundits are making out then how has he held down the 7 shirt for 5 years and how did he become the Panther's players player of the year in 2011 ? Lets see him in action for us before we judge him .

Players can lose form and their performances can drop. When he player of the year he had the likes of Michael Jennings on the end of his passes and kicks. It can't be too hard to look good in that situation.

He was apparently a very promising young player. Leaguefreak admits himself that he had him flagged as a future international player.

Being all circumspect and philosophical about everything is very boring as well. It's far more fun as fans to be extreme. In this case if we all criticise the signing and he turns out to be as bad as people are making out, we can say 'we told you so'. If he turns out to be half decent we can swing wildly the other way and boast about him being the best in Super League. It's what fans are meant to do.

I have to say that paragraph quite neatly sums up almost all of your 24102 posts to date

P.S. by the way is there any actual evidence at all that we have even expressed an interest in this guy?

Not from the club directly. But it was mentioned on the TV commentary of a recent Penrith game that he was being released by Penrith to sign for us.

I think the key here is the issue of release. If he's being released now, to come to us for the rest of the season, then I'd accept that on the basis of a desperate gamble. If, on the other hand, he's not coming until next year, then I'd question it a bit, on the grounds that if we've already written off this season with no halfback, we don't need to panic-buy so much,and should take a little more time to look around.

End of the season due to quota issues. We'd have to release one of our overseas players and have cap room for both their salaries to do it this year. When Perry was injured recently there was hope it could be him, but his Pheonix from the flames return put paid to that.

I've just heard he's on the plane tonight!?

Source - brother's, sister's, auntie's dog heard at the crispy cod that he's renting Mason's old apartment in parr.