Tbf I'd heard the Pauli Pauli rumour from a couple of lads who usually aren't too far off the mark. Also got told about a prop who's name was mentioned a few pages ago who's still under contract at his current club but mooted as part of a swap deal with a player who's still on our books, but what's the point if I have to justify everything to Vasty? I believe these are still targets with nothing concrete.

Nobody ever takes that into account.

You don't need to justify anything to me as I really don't care what you think

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that it's not lego. Like Belly says what about all long term deals signed in recent month? Most players have contracts that yield more the more games they play. You can very quickly end up with a smaller squad that costs more - in fact that's what you want as it shows you are signing and creating quality players.

As for your question - it's not me who keeps mentioning your profession it's you - you've mentioned it umpteen times, which of course is your prerogative - however I think you are the only person on here whose profession I know.

Finally I didn't know you'd made a 'chippy' reference, I was just being light hearted.

I'm a gogo dancer by the way

Its a fair point Belly about retaining players.

One thing I would add, as other teams in super league are pretty much maxed out on the salary cap, there wouldnt be too much wiggle room for negiotiating by other clubs.

There is also such a thing is squad and club culture which seems to be a big thing the players are buying into.

Good luck with the go go dancing. Always thought pink would suit you.

I'm not aiming this at anyone in particular but I have a few questions regarding Pauli Pauli. I know this is a thread about Gadwin Springer but PP seems to be flavour of the month.

1: PP is nearly 20 stone and 6' 4'' even in the NRL that is a monster - so why is it's basement club getting rid of what appears to be an asset?

2: He has 48 NRL games under his belt, that's a lot more than Fifita had. Thats the same Fifita the KNIGHTS! were trying to sign at the end of 2016. Is it just me who finds that odd, why would Newcastle replace what appears to be a superior player on paper with an inferior one



3: Why are no other NRL teams interested?

4: There are at least 5-6 SL far more in need of a big prop than we are, why are they not interested?

Now in the case of 3 - 4 they may be interested but I've seen nothing.

Now if we do sign him the I'm happy to trust CC and JK judgement. However there are far more question marks over this player than there are over Springer. Could very well be another Charlie Leona or worse a ********* can't even say his name, Better the devil you know sometimes.

I'd go with that were it not for the fact (I believe) that MC stated we still can't spend to the full cap - which in essence means we don't have any wiggle room either.

The only way around it would be to find a sponsor who would pay a percentage of a certain players wage. It's not a new idea, just get the impression it might not be the way MC likes to do things but I could be very wrong.

Again I may be wrong but I think we have probably gone as far as we can now with the revenue streams available - we are now at a stage where BV as it stands is costing us dear.

I think with Pauli it's probably a injury issue why the Knights might not want to take a chance on him. just alone in 2017 he was involved in bad car accident, that was thhought at the time to be career ending. He managed to come back from that hip injury and then broke his leg in a game. The lads only just turned 23 now, & up until the 2017 season he's played a good amount of games. When I first saw him those first couple of years at Parra as a 19/20 year old he was being hailed as the next big thing for them.
Tbh If he's got over his leg break and his fitness is still good and CC thinks he's worth a punt, I'll go with that. Also if he gets back to what he was if he comes here, it won't be long before he's back in the NRL and age is on his side.

As for point 4, same could be said about Fifita. Most teams are after a big Prop but no one was bothered about him at the time.

Also on the point where you mention the Knights trying to sign Fifita, PP was still there and playing att and that was before his accident & leg break in 2017. So it wasn't a case of 'replace what appears to be a superior player on paper with an inferior one'.

Plus JK is also famous for his! the players nobody wanted projects and turning careers around.

I would say, a combination of a string of freak injuries, which must have being really difficult to come back from physically and mentally, the fact they are a basement club is prob the other reasons too, they'll need proven reliability and the talent pool over there allows letting players go of his caliber



By on paper i assume you just mean NRL games played?

Daves an awesome talent and at Wakey it works for him and he's playing the best rugby of his career, for various reasons he didn't settle at his NRL teams where as Pauli Pauli did

I wasn't aware/cant remember if Newcastle did want him but ultimately Fifita is a very talented player, so why wouldn't they try to sign him

To back up shifty cat, when he was playing at the eels he really was going to be the next best thing, at the time he was one of the props keeping Moi Moi out of the team, not only that, he really did look like the real deal especially for his age,

His running style and they way he held the ball was a little like SBW so could shift his weight well and offload or go straight and hard and he can carry alot of ball too, I can't remember what he was like defensively or from his time after the eels




NRL teams and SL teams may be wanting to sign him, we have know way on this board of knowing



It goes without saying, JK and CC know what they are doing an have my absolute backing and trust,
We've seen it time and time again with players especially with JK signings (it still makes me laugh when we signed Broughy and people were moaning actually at JK at one of the audience nights)

Our squad is so settled and we already have 4 quality first choice props, all with various individual skills, plus Baldwinson and potentially Aorna/Anikin, So I actually think we are in a position to take a punt on a player

BUT if Paulis fitness is ok, its not a punt, we would be bringing what could be another potential Dave Fifita caliber of player over,
Some one that could be the difference in the games like hull and sts at the end of next season, I don't think that would be quite the case with Springer although again, in CC/JK I trust

YES this, they seem to more often than not work a lot better for us

id broadly agree with what people are saying but for me it's always worth looking at the negatives first.

No doubt if he worked out he'd be awesome but then so would Springer or almost anybody for that matter

Springer would be a good acquisition and any signing has a risk to it although it's significantly less with Springer who is a big unit and will run it in hard. He no doubt will be on less than Pauli Pauli and is already based in the UK so issues around settling in etc will hopefully be irrelevant. However I haven't seen much of Pauli Pauli in the NRL but if what is written about him has any basis of truth then he sounds as if he would be a real impact player if fit and healthy and able to settle in the UK. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... b26ba94c6a

Springer would be a good acquisition and any signing has a risk to it although it's significantly less with Springer who is a big unit and will run it in hard. He no doubt will be on less than Pauli Pauli and is already based in the UK so issues around settling in etc will hopefully be irrelevant. However I haven't seen much of Pauli Pauli in the NRL but if what is written about him has any basis of truth then he sounds as if he would be a real impact player if fit and healthy and able to settle in the UK. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... b26ba94c6a

Is Springer better than what we have ?

Not getting rid of ‘what we have’, are we?
Thought people were discussing additions.

He's an addition isn't he - not sure I get your point? I suppose he's a replacement for Allgood/Walker/Hasson in which case he's a more than adequate replacement.

Out of the World Cup unfortunately..

The 'is he better than what we've got' could apply to any player.
Springer has been OK in the SL,without being used too much,looks good for the amount of minutes he plays but are we looking for something a bit more?
It's all about money at a club like ours, if you want the best put your money where your mouth is.

Quote ="asmadasa"Springer would be a good acquisition and any signing has a risk to it although it's significantly less with Springer who is a big unit and will run it in hard. He no doubt will be on less than Pauli Pauli and is already based in the UK so issues around settling in etc will hopefully be irrelevant. However I haven't seen much of Pauli Pauli in the NRL but if what is written about him has any basis of truth then he sounds as if he would be a real impact player if fit and healthy and able to settle in the UK. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... b26ba94c6a'" If we are happy with a big unit that runs it in hard then we may as well give up trying to improve now. Powell wasn't happy with a big unit that runs it in hard so why should we be ? After all, we are supposed to be using Cas' improvement as a blueprint , are we not ? Props need to have skills as well as being a battering ram these days. Springer doesn't seem to have a skilful bone in his body from what I've seen. It's still a massive NO from me I'm afraid.

Quote ="asmadasa"Springer would be a good acquisition and any signing has a risk to it although it's significantly less with Springer who is a big unit and will run it in hard. He no doubt will be on less than Pauli Pauli and is already based in the UK so issues around settling in etc will hopefully be irrelevant. However I haven't seen much of Pauli Pauli in the NRL but if what is written about him has any basis of truth then he sounds as if he would be a real impact player if fit and healthy and able to settle in the UK. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... b26ba94c6a'" If we are happy with a big unit that runs it in hard then we may as well give up trying to improve now. Powell wasn't happy with a big unit that runs it in hard so why should we be ? After all, we are supposed to be using Cas' improvement as a blueprint , are we not ? Props need to have skills as well as being a battering ram these days. Springer doesn't seem to have a skilful bone in his body from what I've seen. It's still a massive NO from me I'm afraid.

Thankfully it isn't up to you or me. I think your totally wrong about what's required from a prop. You need a mix and you certainly need one those battering ram props. The idea that every prop needs to be a skillfull ball player is to my mind plain wrong.

However that's just opinion what does offend me is this idea we are just aping Cas. Well I chuffing hope not. We need to create our own style and our own ethos - I want no part of the so called Cas blueprint I certainly don't want us to be some low rent version of them. It's great for them not for us.

Skilful props cost lots of money, consistent skilful props cost even more. We've already got some good ball handling props, what we need is some extra muscle to push the pack forward for a couple of drives so the more skilled(?) players have time to make plays. What Chester and Kear have us playing is open and expansive rugby where possible, I'm not sure why that has become synonymous with Castleford alone now, as they're not doing anything which hasn't been done by multiple teams in the past

People don't know what Powell is or isn't happy about with Springer ....assumptions are being made about the player abilities and the coach's thoughts.

All I know is that Springer was a handful whenever he played against Trinity and is SL pedigree.

If he is an addition and CC & JK think he adds strength to the pack and sign him then he'll do for me....

I recall on this forum a few years ago when suggesting possible prop signings some statied that Keegan Hirst was not SL standard does not run his weight and could not catch a cold never mind a rugby ball..how times change...Hirst is a now top SL prop in my opinion and hopefully signs a new contract with Trinity.

Like you I hope the bag man stays because he's a good Prop already but I think he could become even better. What you typed could be the elephant in the room though and the reason we may be looking at other non quota players like Springer. He simply may have been offered more money elsewhere, by a team looking for a giant, who have also seen his improvement as the season has gone on. The sounds coming out of the club by JK saying he was looking forward working with Hirst more next season and MC on the radio, seemed to suggest he was staying & it was more about just working out his contract, we'll see though,

Interesting reading..... viewtopic.php?f=33&t=524764&start=50

Interesting reading..... viewtopic.php?f=33&t=524764&start=50

Quote ="asmadasa"Interesting reading..... viewtopic.php?f=33&t=524764&start=50'" Depressing, more like.

Quote ="asmadasa"Interesting reading..... viewtopic.php?f=33&t=524764&start=50'" Depressing, more like.