Liam Byrne has signed for Warrington for 2026. Shame to develop him and his prime years be with another team but can’t keep them all. The production line will keep producing.

It's always going to be a balancing act with a squad as good as this one and keeping them all happy, both from a minutes POV and also in terms of salary will be a challenge. Byrne has frustrated at times but there is a good player in there. I think the move to Warrington will be good for him and maybe Burgess can get that week to week intensity out of him, which is the main thing he's missing, with him having months worth of 'meh' performances but the tying it all together for a few games. As already pointed out, it should then be Harvie Hills time to nail down a spot and I think the potential is there for him to be an upgrade.

you'd assume the club were talking to Byrne about a new contract, and its interesting to see that he has made his decision so early under the new rules

[quote="NickyKiss":1uccxesf]It's always going to be a balancing act with a squad as good as this one and keeping them all happy, both from a minutes POV and also in terms of salary will be a challenge. Byrne has frustrated at times but there is a good player in there. I think the move to Warrington will be good for him and maybe Burgess can get that week to week intensity out of him, which is the main thing he's missing, with him having months worth of 'meh' performances but the tying it all together for a few games. As already pointed out, it should then be Harvie Hills time to nail down a spot and I think the potential is there for him to be an upgrade.[/quote:1uccxesf] Pretty much agree wholeheartedly with this. I’ve been a fan of Byrne from the outset and really wanted him to become a consistently dominant prop however, for every good game there are several pretty average games hence why he I’d down the pecking order. Will still be sad to see him exit particularly to Wire. I wish the lad well and hope that he has got himself a decent contract. Hill and Eseh hopefully are now both really committed to getting a lot more game time in 2025. With Cooper gone and Byrne to exit I wonder if the plan is to develop Walters as a prop or maybe move Ellis back to front row duties and moving O’Neil to 13. Difficult decisions for KR and MP but a lot better than just a few years ago where we were “making do” with centres and a lightweight pack. I’m pretty confident that the club will have plans in place already with the departure of Byrne.

Good luck to Liam, he will have seen out his contract and that is good enough for me. It does give us more scope within the salary cap and, given that we have a host of promising youngsters coming through our system we will be in a position to secure them on longer term contracts.

It's difficult for our props as both Thompson and Havard do a lot of minutes. It's set up for a Mago-style impact prop, but not really for someone who also needs long minutes to get into their game as you're waiting for Thompson/Havard to need resting or getting injured.