There's a lot of hype here about Tyrone Roberts but I worry that he's being set up to fail.

He does look impressive on the highlights montages on that video sharing website and so I am looking forward to see him in the P&B.

But lets be realistic about him being a one man show. In the years he was Newcastle halfback they finished 12th, 7th, 12th, 16th (wooden spoon). When he was at Gold Coast they finished 8th and 15th. He wasn't such an influential player as to pull them up to the top tier.

There are a lot of question marks over our other signings too. I've been a Wire fan for long enough to see a lot of overseas signings come and go and a lot of flops. You start to recognise certain warning signs:

- being over 30
- having had a 'journeyman' career
- being a squad player rather than a first choice in the NRL
- being a 'utility' player without a set position

Bryson Goodwin and Mitch Brown are both 30 plus, have moved around clubs. Brown barely played an NRL game in his last couple of seasons at Cronulla before joining Leigh. The fact we signed both of them from Leigh also makes me worry a bit! Brown was a 'utility back'.

Sitaleki Akauola was a squad player at Penrith, he wasn't a first choice starter. He is another 'utility player' - we are told he is a second row or winger who can play prop! Well hopefully he is an emerging Ruben Wiki!

I am not writing these guys off. You could have asked similar questions about Nat Wood, Darren Burns and Sid Domic, who were all excellent players for us. They all had superb professional attitudes and represented the primrose and blue in the right way which set a good standard for others, so if our new intake of overseas players do the same I will be hopeful of success.

But at the moment I don't see anything to wow me about our recruitment, or about our new coach who did not do well as a head coach in the NRL.

There's a lot of expectation here at the start of the season about being top 4 and competitive but last season we had a mediocre pack, the backline lacked pace, and what makes people think those problems will go away? It is still broadly the same team that nearly got relegated.

A couple of months in to the season, are we going to have a huge hindsight brigade on here, telling us that ANYBODY could have seen we needed better recruitment, ranting about Russell, Lineham, Brown, Hughes or whoever, asking why they are still in the team, and with big wishlists for 2019 and the vast overhaul we will need....

one answer to that Sally is a Mr hicks. He was a little unknown who turned out well you know the rest

Agree with most of that, but a bit unfair on Goodwin. Certainly not in his prime, but a solid player. Not prolific but 200 NRL appearances and 10 for New Zealand, with 1 try every 3 games is better than some of our centres and his defence and ground work are quality. There aren’t many NRL players available these days but Goodwin is not a journeyman reject and I think he’ll go well - nothing spectacular but a cut above what we’ve had since the days of Bridge on that right side.

Gidley came from a wooden spoon NRL team and made the SL dream team plus 2 finals the next year with us.

Parramatta had a pretty poor record then Sandow came over here and lit up SL.

Wests finished 10th then 9th, then an aging Hodgson came over to SL and won MOS.

I would argue that NRL team records and even age have little relevance to how they'll go in SL.

I expect our performance levels to be much better, I don't mind them losing to a better team on the day, that's sport. I don't expect out attack to be fully fluent at this stage when Roberts hasn't played with any of his team mates yet.

My reservation about this season is that I think our squad is a bit small, we will get a few injuries at some point and we could struggle at the business end of the season.

....that's where that tiny bit of spare salary cap (£50k apx) could show it's worth. It won't buy a feather duster now but it could buy class as the split comes if required!!

Old Sally C. is a real bundle of joy isn't he?The idea that decent players never play for clubs who finish mid-table or near the bottom of the league is a flawed generalisation. Bit of garbage wrapped up with a few stats.

Saints wasn't high flying when Barba joined for sure.

I’ll be interested to see whether Barba can do for Saints what Sandow did for us. Not quite as many tricks in his bag compared to Sandow but devastating runner and probably more focussed and less prone to ‘outside influences’ - despite his drugs history. I think he’ll last longer than Sandow too.

We seem to have attracted so many imports with problems that the RFL could do worse than approach the Priory as a main sponsor.

Ive said it before and I'll say it again. Rugby players are thick.
Just some are much thicker than others.

I don't think that's the case is it? The salary cap value of a player is based on his full salary as if he'd been here all year, for example I don't think we could sign someone for 2 months of the year and pay him £20k per month. His salary cap value would not be £40k, it would be £240k.

That's my understanding at any rate...?

Correct. Section 5.4.2.

Cap value for a player is calculated as what their annual gross payments would be.

Who said anything about his annual cap value?
Im referring to a backend signing ahead of the next season.
Barba Peta Sandow. Eg.

And there we go. I presume we were all waiting for that particular response.

In fairness to RD, there is a workaround regarding lump sums.

Signing-on fees / bonuses can be spread over the length of the contract for the purposes of the cap, but paid upfront to the player.

Lets say hypothetical player Pitta Haiku wants 20k to play the last 2 months of the season (10k per month).

It would cost us 20k of real money, but 120k of cap space under normal circumstances - so it's not going to happen.

But - we could sign the player on modest terms - say 2k per month - that's only 24k of cap space. We'd obviously put a healthy pay rise in next season when we can juggle things around and afford the cap space.

Then give the player a 2.5 year contract, and a 16k signing-on fee. This signing on fee only counts as 5.3k on this season's cap, as it's spread over the contract length, regardless of when the payment is actually made to the player.

The player would therefore pocket his 20K for his 2 months work.

The total cap cost for the player that season is now only 29.3K - far better than the 120k it would be to pay him him "legitimately".

Pitta Haiku then screws us over, citing homesickness. We terminate his contract without any resistance, and wish him well, and his remaining cap cost vanishes for next season.

The above is purely hypothetical.

Hypothetically then, it would have been a fantastic deal to only pay 2k a month for a NZ international centre who in no small part helped us secure or status in Super League. What a hypothetically great bit of business after all. Hypothetically.

I’m glad the hypothetical Pitta Haiku got to return home to pursue his love of Greek food and Japanese poetry.

I'm not sure the salary cap committee would allow a drastically different salary in year two, as they would quite rightly assume you were spreading 2018 salary into subsequent years. In that instance they would likely spread the cost of his entire contract over the 2.5 year period surely?

Autumn grass shimmers
Homeward unleavened manna beckons
Contracts end

Haha



That’s very good. Can you put yourself forward for a Pulitzer?

We also offered another Tomkins more money than Wigan did for this season.

Seriously? That’s madness. He’s got raw talent but has one good game in about five. The English game isn’t short of decent second rowers.

That’s assuming we aren’t talking about Logan?

No not Logan.I may be exaggerating a bit, I don't know how much was offered etc but yeah I couldn't believe it either!

If I write another 200 I can probably enter the National Poetry Competition..................

This is going from Bard to Verse.