Leeds have signed themselves a similar massive prop from the NRL who is a gamble but has potential in Peteru and people haven't been "wetting themselves" so don't always play the chip on the shoulder routine.

Unless time travel has become available I couldn't possibly say.

Anyhow who's going to start my favorite thread, the league position conundrum.

I'll go first - Wakefield to finish bottom, again & again &.......

POLL isn 't working for me either.

It seems to be working for some but not for others.

[size=120MODERATORS please fix the poll so we can all vote.[/size

There are probably four good reasons why David Mead has signed with Catalans:

1. He wants to play full back, and he has not had a lock on that position in his former clubs, who played him mostly on the wing (he is very fast) ;
2. He wants to play for a club which has a future in Super League;
3. Catalans probably offered him more money than star studded Brisbane was able to pay him;
4. He wants to learn about French culture.

Skeptics should watch the video here of David Mead, the superb full back signing for Catalans: www.catalansdragons.com/en/artic ... avid-mead/

Skeptics should watch the video here of David Mead, the superb full back signing for Catalans: www.catalansdragons.com/en/artic ... avid-mead/

Quote ="JEAN CAPDOUZE"Skeptics should watch the video here of David Mead, the superb full back signing for Catalans: www.catalansdragons.com/en/artic ... avid-mead/'" The player isn't in question, the club he's going to is.

Quote ="JEAN CAPDOUZE"Skeptics should watch the video here of David Mead, the superb full back signing for Catalans: www.catalansdragons.com/en/artic ... avid-mead/'" The player isn't in question, the club he's going to is.

I really rate Brad Dwyer. Think he'll go down brilliantly at Leeds if he's given the chance to.

I like the addition of Dwyer. As much an X Factir Burrow gave us coming off the bench, a proper interchange hooker will give us some good benefits. He may struggle for game time though if Parcell (arguably the recruit of 2017) continues his form on.

At Leeds I'm really interested to see how Myler goes. He's been a player who has shown moments of brilliance but not the consistency. Perhaps he was too young at Warrington, and Catalans too poor during his time. At 27 he might be at the right club at the right age (Gale is 29 now for comparison).

Definite possibility he continues the aforementioned flashes of quality, lack of consistency I mentioned previously. But if he clicks at Leeds could be looking at a HB that is even knocking on the international door again.

I'm actually interested how Peteru will go. I've seen him a few times & I think he'll be really suited for SL

As for Pauli Pauli, if it wasn't for his leg break last year he'd have probably been snapped up an NRL side. If you watch the NRL he was being talked up as the next big thing for Parra as a 20-year-old & then again at the Knights, then he had a bad car crash but managing to get back to what he was before his aforementioned leg break. I suppose that's the difference between the SL and the NRL, we'll take a chance on a huge Prop, while the NRL is a bit more careful because of their bigger player pool.

My top 5 new signings would be

1 Ben Murdoch-Masila
2 Wellington Albert
3 Pauli Pauli
4 Kato Ottio
5 David Mead

No the player is in question the club is irrelevant typical of your snobbery.

If Mead is still a great player explain why he is joining SL not just Catalan.

The NRL is player rich but not so rich it can lose a Mead quality player at the top of his game.

You crease me up you really do your so condescending.

Wigan and especially saints are as ever being bulked up as contenders yet neither did owt last year and have badly recruited in a spectacular way. My point as if you didn't know was that Wakefield did just as well as both those teams and look to have recruited better. Unable to grasp or accept this and that we might actually kick on we are predicted to slide.

You might not accept it but to me its self evident. Cas are getting similar treatment despite only playing badly once last year.

Truth is you've had your own way for so long you just can't stand the possibility and it's only a possibility that things might be changing and the playing field levelling. Shame on you.

No mentions for Joe Wardle at Cas Tigers ? Definatly our best recruit for 2018 out of the 7 new signings although I am looking forward to seeing how Garry Lo will step up to SL.

I know he came during the 2017 season but didn't really get to play, I reckon Ben Barba will be top dog in 2018.

We had this garbage during the year about how things were changing and us big boys didn't like it. Yet Leeds won the GF ahead of Cas, Saints reached the playoffs ahead of Wakey and Wigan reached the CCF at Salford's expense. We have had seasons in the last 10 years where Hudds, HKR and Catalans have all finished in the top 4 yet Wakefield finishing 5th is somehow an amazing thing that's got the rest of SL nervous



Saints got a new coach halfway through the year and he helped Saints climb and finish ABOVE you and will only be better for a full preseason and a fit Barba from the off.

Wigan haven't done much recruiting (but describing their and Saints recruitment as "shockingly bad" is OTT nonsense) but if they keep their starters fit this year they have a better team than Wakefield.

As for them "doing nothing" last season. Saints reached the playoffs and were 60 secs away from reaching the GF. Wigan reached the CCF and won a WCC.......there "nothing" is something Wakefield can only dream of.

You are replying to a wakefield fan. They have had their first top 5 finish for 50 years (and then pretty much lost every game when it mattered). They won’t be even be in SL within a couple of years as they will have no stadium. Just ignore them

Regards

King James

Looks like Pauli Pauli is wing don't choke on your sprouts old love

That that means something to you is quite sad given it'll mostly be fans voting for their own clubs signings, I haven't even voted because it doesn't mean anything, but obviously does to Wakefield fans.

Leading an internet vote poll is the best chance of success for a Wakey fan.....I'll stick with seeing my team win Grand Finals thanks

Pauli Pauli is winning because some people like myself have been unable to vote. Had the RLFANS voting system been not out of order for so many of us, genuine stars like David Mead would have had a real chance of winning this.

I haven't been able to vote either, plus I'm a Wakey fan. Make of that what you want.

No he wouldn't because Wakey fans just vote for one of their guys on mass whereas other teams don't care. You started last years and were championing Greg Bird but here's how it went

Bird - 8
Sene Lefao - 6
Greg Eden - 4
Matt Parcell - 4
Jake Mamo - 2

Total - 24

Sam Williams of Wakefield - 25

Let's be honest there's only 18 votes total since it was created. Wakey fans must be doing well being the only ones that have managed to vote when others haven't, myself included.

Funnily enough, I voted for Bird last year, how wrong was I.

You really do seem to have a bee in your bonnet about Wakefield this year Printer, don't know why. You support Leeds and GF, winners, so what if someone from Trinity is bigging up his team or any other team that is not the traditional big 4/5 teams.

If you and Vastman don't see eye to eye that's one thing, but you seem to think that Wakefield fans are the only ones that could be voting for their own players, which I doubt very much. Each club does it to a certain extent, especially if they've signed someone they think is a good signing, like what happened last year with Williams at Trinity. Who when you watched the Raiders before he came over here, he kept getting called by a number of comms, the best back up half in the comp and even though he didn't settle at Trinity, it's probably why he's walked back into a new contract with them.

Another thing is how many teams have their own websites like Saints, Cas, Salford etc, whereas Trinity doesn't, which is obviously skewing the votes a fair bit.

Also, you have no idea who voted for who, other fans could have voted for Williams. Speaking to fans who've watched the NRL over the years of other sides, they were surprised we managed to get him & he was a quality signing for us. Maybe just maybe some of those voted for him.

Also, I'm not sure what's wrong with people voting for Pauli Pauli, he certainly looked very much the part in the NRL.

Nothing wrong with bigging up your team. But always has to come with the shoulder chip with Wakefield, get a promising signing and awww it's not fair because if Saints signed him people would go on about it more or awww why are people tipping Saints and Wigan to finish above they did nothing this year when in reality they both did more. You can't even set up a reserve team without slagging off other clubs when we haven't even seen if you make a success of it yet and got touchy when somebody criticised your home shirt on the kit thread.

You've had one good season by your standards (an average one by several others standards) and we've been getting this constant big clubs are upset that Wakefield are doing well BS on the VT for most of 2017.

I fancy Wakey to win the Boxing Day game vs Leeds having seen the teams and if so I'm sure we'll hear cries of disbelief when people aren't tipping Wakefield to finish above Leeds in the table next season.

Only one poster with an obvious chip on the shoulder here

I suspect that a lot of Wakefield fans have confused Pauli Pauli with Junior Paulo. Fact: they are two different players.

The season will adjudicate this poll. If David Mead does not suffer serious injury he can be expected to run away with the big individual performances of 2018, even if Pauli Pauli does well.

And expect a fit Greg Bird to pick up where he left off against Leigh last September.