Rovers need to evolve to become consistently more competitive next season (assuming SL status is maintained).


Peacock has already been recruited, along with Minns.

If you were the owner who would you change and why?

Behind the scenes:
Strength, fitness conditioning and wrestling coaches all need recruiting/replacing IMO, its an area that has been lacking for at least 2 seasons. And although i'm tempted to say get rid of Poching and hire a new defensive coach i believe that would be too great a change and also if the team improved in the areas i would recruit new coaches in this would improve the defensive frailties of this season.

The next part is much more subjective and will probably (i believe) be the bigger cause of controversy as people inherently don't like it when others don't agree with them.

Playing staff:
OUT:
Puletua (Loan)
Greenwood (Loan)
Burke (Loan)
Larroyer (Loan)
Chisolm (Loan)
Ben Cockayne
Cox

IN:
1 x Fullback. Dixon is good against mid - lower table teams but is massively exposed against better organisation, yet i'd retain him to watch his development.
Lunt (Free) or another experienced Non Quota Hooker
2 x Props (i would ditch Tilse to open up some quota space if paying off his contract wasn't too extortionate)
1 x 2nd row
1x Centre

No names to the "Ins" as i don't know who's is available besides Lunt being at the end of his contract.

How does everyone else see the requirements for evolution?

Pretty much what you said regarding the coaching staff. We need a fullback but that's the least of my worries. Id concentrate on paying Tilse off, getting rid of the players you said, signing up lunt, getting 2 big nasty props and a big nasty line running, tackle busting 2nd rower. A quality centre for minns and co to learn off, unfortunately Salter isn't good enough so he'd be below Minns I reckon in the pecking order. Then if we could get a good full back I wouldn't retain Charlie and replace him with the good full back whilst recruiting a back up half. I do hope Marsh gets some game time soon though. If we do well enough in Middle 8s early on maybe he could get some game time towards the end. All recruitment would be prioritised in the order I put them in.

Laroyer is a great wide runner if used that way & Salter is becoming a very good centre, Chisolm is already signed for Canterbury. the loan signings will be off back, Lunt should be signed up now but may get a better offer from a bigger club. Dixon needs keeping at fullback all we need is a couple of big nasty forwards to hold the midfield & give us some grunt going forward.

Kirmond and Clarkson in.

Very good post mirroring my thoughts,larroyer should be put back to running out wide which clearly is his strength and he has a good workrate and misses very few tackles and lunt would be an obvious signing,and he appears to be pretty content here.Allgood is the player who we have missed the most,tackles hard works hard as has a nasty streak,and a couple more like him would do the trick for me.Would give charlie another year.

I read a comment on either here or the Rovers fans from a guy in Oz that Chisholm is a more than competent FB.

Yes I've heard the same Dave

Kirmond would do, but Clarkson is no better than what we have. It's always the same with players who are squad members of top clubs, they don't look as impressive with an average squad, which we have in comparison to Leeds. Kirmond has shone in a cr@p side.

I think we need to keep Dixon at full back. He needs constant game time there. We need to accept he's going to make mistakes but its (hopefully) for a long term gain. I honestly feel bringing someone else in to play full back as well will hamper his development.

Other topic on this for me here: Salter. Good enough or not. For me he just isn't good enough to be a starting centre for us. He's okay but I feel he's the sort of play we need to be looking to upgrade for next season. Maybe Minns will be the player to replace him. I'm wondering if Peacock will be bringing any other prospects over with him

Salter is still only a young player starting off his career & getting better with each game, defending very very well has put out some very well worked passes to his wing. Kris & he will be the starting pair & Minns will have to be good to get in ahead of them. Salter is not a flashy extovert he just gets on with his job & is just what we need.

Let's see how Minns does against salter when Rovers play Sheffield. I like salter, good defender, is improving his attack. Backs himself more these days.

Are they loaning him from Leeds on alternate weeks to Fev then?

One thing that Salter has really added to his game this year is a quick tap and from penalties, he invariably get's over the gain,line to make thirteen or fourteen metres.

His defence also remains decent, if he can continue to improve that aspect of his game he should have a reasonable career, not a flashy player but there should always be a place for a defensive centre.

As long as Sio is here, all he needs to do is put him a bit of space and his job's done.

Yea that's what they do, dint you know? Tbh I had a feeling after I posted that he did play for fev. Just couldn't be bothered to check.

We need a good prop, a good loan prop, a fast and bullocking back rower, a right centre and Lunt to commit.

To measure how good Liam Salter is or isn't at right centre, here are the starters in his position for this year's top 4 SL teams. Watkins, Percival, Gelling, Cudjoe.
To illustrate what I mean by a good prop, here's 4 from the same teams that set the benchmark in this position. Peacock, Walmsley, Crosby, Crabtree.
Examples of bullocking back rowers from the same teams. Cuthbertson, Ablett, Joe Greenwood, Vea, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Tautai, Farrell, Ta'ai, Ferres.

Happy with James Greenwood at prop on loan for another year.

Would be interested to know how you rate our squad against the above players.

Also Goulding was justifiably our right centre for the early part of the season. Now Salter. Hmmmmm. Big decrease in class.

You should know that factual inaccuracies are food & drink to pedantic gets like me!

There's nout wrong with wanting to look clever on here haha

Have i missed something on welham? Has he been announced as definitely being with us next year? Just thinking with minns and rumours of thornley coming maybe they could be our starting centres next year

The one thing in common with the above mentioned is that none are or will be available to rovers, start by naming players who are available to us remembering we have no overseas places left. & Salter is a very good player as good as Whelam who is getting back to the form that got him an International call up a couple of seasons ago. Our backs have not been a problem this season it is size up front we have lacked ilustrated by having to play Laroyer way out of position most of the year.

Thanks BR

Methinks you are slightly missing the point of my post. The thread title is EVOLUTION.

To evolve and succeed, we need to aspire to the standards of the top 4 in SL, hence naming incumbents as a benchmarking exercise. I am unable to give you names of players that are available to fill my notion of what I perceive as our pressing needs, as it's the paid responsibility of Mike Smith together with Chris Chester to handle that.

My point is simply this. There is a common denominator in the attributes the players in the top 4 teams I listed possess. Alongside them, I feel some of our players currently in those positions don't measure up. I am sure I am not alone in these thoughts.

I have purposely left coaching weaknesses to one side for now.

This is what annoys me, Salter is not a very good centre. People just think he is because he's home grown from academy. If salter was Australian I very much doubt people would be saying he's a very good centre. Just those massive red and white tinted blinkers. Our youngsters are pretty terrible to what their is around the world. Let's not forget Albert Kelly is 24! Compare Salter to every one of the teams above us starting right centres there's a massive difference. Same with out backrow which is just laughable. Horne and Mccarthy/Larroyer vs Ellis/Mini, Westwood/Laithwaite(poor but as a duo still better), Taia/Whitehead, Ferres/Hughes or Taia etc etc. Horne isn't good enough to be a starting second rower for a top 6 side no way never mind the best second rower at the club.

Have you got a bucket full of money to replace them?

No but if I did I would

Besides, I didn't know our opinions on what would improve the team and get them to the next level of pushing for top 6 regularly was subject to money. If that's the case we all may aswell just stop now as nobody definitely knows 100% how much money we have at our disposal.