Butler-Flemings spot got used last season when Masoe signed, so him going won’t free anything up apart from enough cap to by 3 tackle bags.

Quinlan, Blair, Carney, Masoe and Heffernan take 5 of our 7 non-fed spots.

If JBF were confirmed as leaving, it'd leave us with 2 spots.

I wonder when we'll release the squad numbers.

Who we rumoured to be after?
Our esteemed local journalist keeps referring to a half back. Any ideas who?

You also didn't factor in the considerable savings on knee bandages.

Jason Clark is still rumoured. However “Our esteemed local journalist” also appears to be setting up the “Go with what we’ve got” scenario. Between Sheens, Hudgell and Peacock we have spent almost 4 months in Australia surely to God there will be a couple of players announced soon.

I'm clinging to the hope that we're waiting til visa's are sorted to announce the signings, get the feeling we're going as is though, as you say the groundwork seems to be getting laid.

You do know xmas is coming and even rovers give out xmas presents maybe that is why nothing has been said lets wait and see

Not much seems to leak from the club nowadays, so it's not an unreasonable hope.

But I do suspect that we haven't been able to get the quality we wanted, and with decent depth there's no point making more signings for signings' sake.

With a non-fed spot or two and some spare budget we should be well placed if somebody becomes available in the new year. Not ideal, but things often aren't.

Over the years I have been watching rovers (over 50yrs and counting) we have signed some very good player in the season so I am not worried

I'm not worried exactly. Worried was with 10 minutes to play against Fax in the first game in the 8s this year.

There's a bit of nervous trepidation in anticipating the new season, alongside the excitement and hope. Like most years, really.

I do though remember Peacock once saying that 'everybody has a plan until they are punched in the face'. I just wish our plan was to metaphorically do the punching, rather than relying on a smaller team putting in a 80 minute performance to nick the odd win. But there'll always be summat to fret about.