Irregs#16 wrote:So lets try and see if we can recap from the start of this season:
Out - Sutcliffe, Jack Brown, Nu Brown, Tex Hoy, McIntosh, Diakhate
Rumoured to be Out - Jack Walker, Carlos, Houghton, Cam Scott, Joe Cator,
In/Rumoured To Be In - Tom Briscoe, Zak Hardaker, Oliver Holmes, John Asiata, Jed Cartwright, Treigh Stewart, Jordan Abdull, Ed Chamberlain, Yusuf Aydin
I will try and match them up:
Jack Walker > Treigh Stewart
Jack Brown > Yusuf Aydin
Liam Sutcliffe > Zak Hardaker
Nu Brown > Jordan Abdull
Tex Hoy > Treigh Stewart
Darnell McIntosh > Tom Briscoe
Diakhate > Jed Cartwright
Carlos >
Houghton >
Cam Scott > Ed Chamberlain
Joe Cator > Oliver Holmes
Asiata is also an addition to the squad rather than replacing someone. There could also be further movement out - with Okunbor likely to leave, and Pele an outside chance. That means we will have "potentially" 2 to 3 further quota spots to get a starting Centre and 9
For me, looking at that above, there is a fair bit of like-for-like and/or unknown quantity, which is understandable given where we are starting from. It's not like we can assemble a top-two squad in one fell swoop and all will be magically right.
We have to start somewhere and hopefully some of these incoming players will bring a different attitude and mind-set to proceedings which would go some way towards improving matters on the pitch.
The key though is Cartwright. Can he weld them into a cohesive unit which is prepared to put a shift in each week? If he can, then we should make some progress, in turn becoming a slightly more attractive proposition to other (higher quality) players and, hopefully, we can build on from there in 2026/27.
We all know this will take time to even clamber out of the deep trench we've dug for ourselves in recent times. No-one is expecting us to be uprooting trees next year, but a higher level of consistency will hopefully inject some much needed positivity into the club. I'm really hoping we are now at the bottom of the curve (heaven knows we simply cannot afford to fall much further, the result of which could be catastrophic).
Hoping next year's squad is the first steps back towards respectability, at the very least, but I reckon it may still be slow short steps for a little while at least. The only way is up from here, with everything crossed for better days ahead once more. Keep the faith(full).
There seems to be a lot of criticism of our current recruitment on here much of which I can understand I guess but I prefer to see what the final picture is when our new coach arrives, we complained like hell when nothing was happening and during the inertia that surrounded the club At least something is happening and we are being very proactive. WE need depth in this squad as well as stars and no one could anticipate the Renaissance we are seeing at present which is pretty unprecedented by Super League standards.
