We do seem to overloaded with overesa players in the forwards.
Saying taht if we sign rooney and Turner, we will have

Tansey
Calderwood
Yeaman
Hall
Briscoe
Raynor
Whiting
Horne
Long
Berrigan
Turner
Rooney
Jack Briscoe

So we have plenty of players for the backs.

Think we are building a very good squad for next year.

This is why I wouldnt have signed Cusack yet, he is 32 and it might turn out that the new lad or Moa turn put to be better than him, esp in the long term, and we wont be able to sign them as we have no quota places left.

Totally agree. I also don't see why we felt the need to do it so early. As you say, he's 32, injured, and looking for one last year. With the overseas numbers coming down I can't see we had too much competition for him to stay.

With your last post, I agree Rooney and Turner would round things off fairly nicely, I was just still hopeful of an experienced fullback option coming in. Now it's just down to Tansey to make the position his own. With any luck though, he'll do well there and it'll be settled for the next 5/6 years at least.

Or Horne, with Rooney and Berrigan possible playing stand off.

Also although young Jack Briscoe will be chanllenging for that position in the next couple of years.

and i don't think there is much chance of that.o'meley,lauaki and fitzgibbon
have only just signed for the club,and cusack has recently signed a one-year extension,which leaves manu and berro.unless one of these 2 decide to leave,that's it.willie will see his contract out,and possibly apply for the excemption rule that gene got,and that then leaves berro.either way if he decided to go,it would cost the club a lot of money,so he will be staying.moa and cordoba are now putting themselves in the shop window for the rest of this season

Aye you're right, I had 7 in my mind, I forgot about the reduction for next year.

Much as I rate Cusack I tend to agree. Although I guess it depends on who else is being retained/released among the forwards.

Think Moa has been badly mishandled TBH.

I'd be tempted to see if a NL club will take him next year on loan for a year, us pay his wages so there is an option for him to come back when Cusack retires.

I very much doubt the league would allow us to sign up a player who will take us over the overseas allowance, even if we were going to send him on loan for a year.

From the moment we signed Cusack, it was clear that Moa wasn't in Agar's plans for next season.

Good point , Although Cucack has been one of the better performers this season . You get a similar job from Dowes . We could have used Cusacks quota spot to better use.

A 4 prop roatation of Dowes, Yak, Shrek and Hame has more balance to it than replacing Yak with Moa.

If we had have signed Kite not Shrek i would agree with you that Moa would have been the better option than Yak, its all about the balance of the side.

Whilst not as good though, I think Radford at prop would offer the same balance and have still allowed us to retain Moa to compete for a place. If Radford is to continue masquerading as a back rower with Fitzgibbon and Tickle, I still think our balance will be a bit off personally.

It's also about long term plans, and Cusack will retire at the end of next season while Moa or Cordoba could be here for the next five years.

According to AGAR he will be putting himself in the shop window for other SL clubs surely if he cuts the mustard we should sign him up and let one of our poor performers go he is a young overseas player some thing we normally dont go for

No overseas places left for next season.

No surprise there is there?

Sadly, no.

Out of interest, in which particular area has he been mis-handled? I don't mean that as a challenge, I just don't understand. Do you mean bringing him here as a "project" and then only playing him in short spells? Or is it bringing him over as a "quota" player and not ensuring we have a spot for him next year? Or have we mis-handled him on a personal front?

If the Leeds match was anything to go by he seems to be developing as a project but on other fronts I couldn't comment.

I don't think you can use a 6 person quota on 3 impact prop forwards, keeping Moa for another year would be good however he's 23, Hame is 25 (signed on for another 2 years) and O'Meley is 28 (signed on for another 2 years/potentially 3) that's our 2 impact front rowers sorted out for the next 2 years atleast can we really afford to keep a 'project' on an already priceless quota spot?

I actually expect O'Meley to start ahead of Cusack (assuming Dowes is still here). But I agree, I would have liked to see an overseas spot used on a fairly established back.

Maybe 'badly' isn't justified. I was referring to the manner he was brought over as a project (no problem with that), then dropped straight into the first team for stupidly short bursts, then left in the reserves when we were crying out for a change in the forwards. I don't feel that he's been given enough of a chance to demonstrate his aptitude for SL (or lack of it) and he clearly isn't in our plans for next season so he never will. For us at least.

That said, maybe there are other factors at work that aren't clear from the outside. It would be nice to have had some kind of explanation for the (on the face of it) baffling way in which his time here has been used.

Some good points there. I guess I would have just liked the opportunity for Moa to prove whether he has what it takes or not. Of course, in an ideal world he would have been doing that this season rather than next anyway.

Another factor of why he was signed was his proffesialism (spelling ??) and leadership both on and off the field , as well as creating a new squad Agar is trying to have a more proffessional / better off fields attitude within the club (less drinking culture)something Cusack is an example to follow.

I fail to believe there'd be no other model professionals available, though. I see that it's a good quality in him, just not something so valuable and unique to prioritise his signing.

Being professional (or not) is only reason to reject a signing IMO, not to make one.

Spot on Kosh. I'm very disappointed with the way the whole Moa situation has played out.