I haven't, I've left them out. Who would you put them ahead of?

Realistically, Wilkin will be at 13 ahead of Turner I'd imagine, but I just think Turner could offer more with a consistent run there. What we couldn't afford to do is have Wilkin in the second row and Turner at 13 as there's just not enough size then.

Flanaghan just doesn't fit into any sort of permanent role, and if we're serious about challenging again, we need players who offer more threat with the ball. Good backup if he's willing to play that role again though...

You're insane if you'd include Beaumont before Wilkin.



Turner has probably had some of his better games in the middle recently to be fair to him but with Walsh, Lomax, Burns & Wilkin in the side, we're well covered for play makers and will be reliant on Turner playing at Centre, with Percival as the other option as we don't really have too many options there.

If we could play Wilkin at prop I wouldn't have to resort to ghostmont



You're insane if you want to return to the quality defensive structure that was Percival and Swift on the same side

Jones and Swift compliment each other well, and Percival and Makinson could be a real strike partnership - win win all round. But that leaves the question what to do with Turner...

I reckon Percival and Turner have stepped up the latter part of the season, Percival has improved a lot in defence and Turner has improved his skill set. For me its Jones who needs to step up now he is OK in defence but is lacking in go forward and a quality passing game.

When we say step it up, lets not con ourselves we need a full squad. Jones is a very useful player to have good enough in most positions and therefore key to any squad. He can hold his own in the pack and switch to centre more than competently if need be

He doesn't make himself available enough going forward enough I agree, but i don't think he's a bad passer. Leave him at centre and let him develop a partnership with Swift and his attack (and Swifts defence) will both improve (or they're shipped elsewhere)...

We have been calling for a defensively minded centre since Talau and now we have one we want to move him away! Can't win

We've got problems if we see Turner as a loose. He's a centre and it's as simple as that.

He's awful is what he is. Shouldn't be at the club.

On Burns, this guy had better be good or I'm holding you personally responsible. You were the one who drove the idea and I bet McManus got the idea from here, as I know he's got the media manager feeding my posts back to him on an hourly basis.

I must say however that I've never noticed him playing for Hull KR? He's never done particularly well in a game I've seen, but bar games against us at home or on Sky I've not seen many to be fair. From what you've put I'm expecting Tea Ropati or Jason Hooper type player? A tough, uncompromising player with a bit of class about him?

Last time I saw him play (I think), he kicked a 40-20 an then set up a try from the resulting set.

He's a standoff, he seems to be pretty good at everything, rather than one facet dominating his game.
He's a firey competitor, which we need (I think that translate into him being a half decent defender). He's an actual half back so, unlike this year, if walsh gets injured, we're not relying on the likes of Wilkin or Hohaia to be our main playmaker. Burns will take the main role with (presumably) Lance slotting in alongside in a much more comfortable circumstance. The fact he'sgot a kicking game will also stop the oppo stacking all their pressure on Walsh on the last play.

Whether he'll be Man of Steel or win us the GF and CC I don't know, but we'll certainly be better than we are currently. He got selected for the Exiles in front of Blake Green of Wigan, which should stand for something.

I'm very pleased with his signing and like you have stated he will bring some great attributes that will complement our squad. Solid defender, good kicking game and a natural half back. Having natural playmakers at 6 and 7 next year will reap benefits for the club. Good signing in my opinion. Look at Blake Green at HKR, injury prone wasn't a consistent performer there in my opinion, signed for Wigan and has become one of the best 6's in the league. Too many people are castigating our signings before giving them a chance to shine.

Very happy with the Burns signing. Having two specialist halves who know each other so well is something I'm quite looking forward to. As for our team next year, I'd go with:
Lomax
Makinson
Turner
Percival
Swift
Burns
Walsh
Amor
Roby
Walmsley
Vea
Jones
Wilkin

Hohaia
Masoe
LMS
Flanagan

Plenty decent backup with Wello, Dawson, Richards, Greenwood, Savelio, Thompson, etc. Still hoping for another forward to come in though.

Id probably start with Flanagan and have Jones coming off the bench. Apart from that Id be happy for us to go with that...

Just to throw a couple of stats in there too to see how he compares to other stand offs in SL (I didn't include Green as he has missed a fair chunk of the season):

Tries - Burns 3 Brough 3 Brown 12 Sneyd 6
Try Assists - Burns 21 Brough 31 Brown 24 Sneyd 30
40/20 - Burns 4 Brough 9 Brown 1 Sneyd 1
Tackle Busts - Burns 78 Brough 58 Brown 31 Sneyd 56
Clean Breaks - Burns 9 Brough 11 Brown 7 Sneyd 11
Offloads - Burns 38 Brough 20 Brown 14 Sneyd 11

Playing for the worst side out of the 4 in question, the stats don't look bad at all.

On a good day, Turner's a great player. he just seems to puntucate them with horrors, much like LMS, much like Saints.

As Percy has developed, he seems more and more like our star centre. I think its much more likely that Turner will play centre and Jones will(should) play 13. Jones at 13 should be able to combine the high defensive workload that you need somewhere in your back row with a dynamic pseudo centre attacking game outwide - in a similar manner to when Darren Smith was here. Leaving the other two back row slots to be filled by bigger lads.

I'd go
Lomax
Swift Percival Turner Makinson
Burns Walsh
Amor Robes Walmsley
Vea LMS
Jones

Hohaia, Masoe, Thompson, Savelio/Greenwood/Richards/Flash/Wilkin/Any new signing

I've got to say that once you dilute Wilkin's versatility, he becomes a lot less valuable to us. He's too small and nice for a top club back row in the current game.

They are alright. Looks like he's a back rower playing at halfback to me? Enormous tackle busts and offloads but fewer tries and assists than the other players.

It would suggest he likes to take the line on, with his tackle busts and offloads suggesting he's confident in contact.

Lance Hohaia
8 tries
12 try assists
11 clean breaks
31 tackle busts
11 offloads
0 40-20 kicks

From 2006

Leon Pryce
10 tries
12 Try Assists
25 clean breaks
58 tackle busts
59 offloads
0 40-20 kicks

There's literally no pleasing you is there?

That's what he is known for, which should complement Walsh well as Walsh isn't as keen on taking on the line (although he does do it to great effect when he chooses to). Walsh would be the organiser and provider; Burns the feisty go-to man.

You can never describe Turher as "great". He's nowhere near great, he's at times not even average and for 60% of the year been utter rubbish.

His defence is woeful. He's half hearted. He just plods in and hits the ground but every few month he churns out a decent performance but that is by no means great.

If a decent centre came available like Marsh at Widnes I'd have no hesitation in swapping him

Maybe I exaggerate, but he's done some very good things in the red vee, on occasion. That's the most frustrating thing about him, for me.

I like Turner.

I would have dropped, him early when he was poor, just like we did with swift. But I would not call him poor.

I wasn,t just going to say the same thing, we were justified to call him and LMS poor at the beginning of the season. But since we,ve had all these injury dissruptions both Turner and LMS have had to play different roles and are very prominent in how we have adapted to our different play.
In fact I would say Turner looks as though he is enjoying his rugby, gone is the frustrating search for form and now he is just getting on with it and is now looking a proper team player.

Turner is average at best