It's just the way the game has developed.
If you went back to a winger who can't do anything but finish a flowing move you will lose as your forwards will be tired and the opposition will score tries for fun challenging your winger in the air.

It use to be the joke that the winger could freeze to death on the wing in a game played down the middle. That's a pretty inefficient use of your players.
If you have 13 players and two of them stand still until you get close to the line in attack, then you have a lot of players getting tired.

Now saying that, if you are the size of say Regan Grace, you can still succeed as long as you do what he does and step the defenders or at least run at a gap. They may still tackle you but it won't be a heavy front on tackle.
Senior as an example seems to thing he's Dwayne Johnson and tries to power through defenders. Never going to happen.
Kershaw, and I assume Lineham have the muscle power and leg drive to hit the tackle and still make yards.

I understand why it is the way it is…I just miss the days of wingers being out and out finishers,

What is happening with our other out of contract players.

Sorry if I've missed it' but has the LK move been announced officially yet?

No just a very strong rumour.

Personally instead of Lineham I'd have signed Lachlan Walmsley from Haven...pace to burn, knows where try line is and can kick

And if he were that good he’d have been signed by Saints. The games history is littered with such players, big stars in the lower leagues but utterly out of their depth in SL, we’ve had a fair few.

Sometimes a punt pays off but when you can get an utterly proven player like Lineham why would you even consider it. For a club like ours with a tiny budget it would be suicidal.

We will start next season with two highly proven SL wingers, that to me is far better than just one and a total uknown quantity on the other.

It’s a huge no for me.

Note: that’s not to say I don’t think he’s any good, he could turn out to be brilliant, but he’s not worth the risk. If we are going to take risks let’s take them with our own youth players.

That would've gone down really well.

He`s a quota player and he is unproven at this level and you would rather sign him over a proven SL winger that is number 1 choice at a top 4 club? It just doesn`t make sense.

Financially it makes perfect sense as it would free up money to recruit a proven SL/NRL quality player in a position we need it more, such as prop, hooker or a replacement for Westerman

But we then limit ourselves to an Non-Quota player as we waste our last spot on a back up winger?

I suppose, as ever, it boils down to who we retain/release and availability of players and budgets

Think we will struggle to replace Westerman .I was one that did not want him .but we got no one to touch him .Though Batch given time . but not signed yet strange one

Brad Walker is the man in my eyes, he is everything you need from a ball playing loose and oozes the confidence for a young lad, potentially needs to pack some on (Not sure) to keep up with the demands down the middle for the full 80.

Im suprised theres some who are against signing Lineham, soon as i saw the news i thought it was an excellent signing for you. He played his whole Hull career on the right wing so wont have any issue moving back to that side, got an excellent strike rate, safe under the high ball and built for the modern yardage game...Excellent wing pairing you'v got to look forward to.

You mayswel of kept Kershaw than sign someone like Lachlan Walmsley...Kershaws better, non quota and roughly same age.

No it doesn’t well not imo anyway.

If we are letting Kershaw go and not retaining Kay as a winger then we need another good winger to replace them.

There was a time when pack came first and props were the top players but not now. A top winger is as important as a prop and Lineman is a very good winger end of.

In fact I’m stunned we’ve got him.

Signing an unproven quota winger from the championship you may as well keep Kershaw or just wave the white flag. Sorry.

Good sensible post from a neutral perspective.

I agree with everything but that. As much as I think Lineham is the perfect winger for us given his size and attributes, I'd plump for a good prop over a good winger any day

I’d have agreed up until the last few years but I’m not convinced now. If you take away TJ and BJB’s strike rate over the last five seasons we’d have been nothing. How many miracle individual tries have those two scored for us? A lot and a lot of them won us games.

The only prop in that time that’s had anything like that in fluency in that time is Fifita.

Makes you think.

But is that because they are both outstanding players as much as the fact they are both wingers? Especially in TJs case. The very fact you rightly refer to miracle tries kinda makes the point. It's not like we play a style that creates them overlaps every game. That said I guess the rule change with the corner flag has meant decent finishing wingers can have more impact on the game than before

No, it's because so many of their tries were individual efforts carved from nothing. The pack and the halves had little part in these tries as they were not team efforts and without them, we'd not have won a significant number of games.

Like FB the position of the winger has increased in importance significantly in recent years. It was always a glamour position but now it's vital in attack and defence.

Without space or, the ability to make space on the edges, you can have the best winger in the world and they would be feeding off crumbs.
The pack has to come first.
The old saying about forwards deciding the result and the backs by how many is still good.

But that’s the point your missing.

Look how many tries TJ has scored with literally mm’s to spare. Nothing to do with the space created because there wasn’t any. Many were from desperation passes when the play had over run. He had no right to score them and many were match winners.

So no offence but these days that saying is b*ll*cks to some degree, certainly in our case.

Don’t get me wrong you still need a good pack but I no longer think they rule the game as much as they once did. Things change.

People seem to think I'm against Lineham's signing - I'm not. I just think that he won't have come cheap and that with our limited budget there are other options out there that may be worth exploring, Walmsley was one of those imo.

Similarly, with Westerman going I think James Bell at Leigh would be a good replacement but again that's an option as I also think Brad Walker would do well there...if you see other posts of mine on previous threads I suggested Western at prop (before a ball was kicked this season) as a way of keeping KT at 2nd row and using Brad Walker at 13 or in the halves based on the opportunities he created in the 2 or 3 games he had towards the end of last season - the away game v. Leeds in particular stands out.

We all have the club's best interests at heart but have different ideas on how to use the limited resources we have...which is why there are some decent convos on the forum, as well as some tit for tat comments etc that personally aren't for me, regardless of whether I respect everyone else's opinions...we can disagree without taking offence