That would be because you can coach, train or motivate but you can't coach skill, like you can't educate pork.

All those skills coaches out there will be bricking themselves if the read this!

Ah - that's the difference between skills - catching, passing, kicking which can all be practiced and trained.
And Skill - which is innate.

Skills you can coach - it's class - which if you are lucky enough you are born with.

Problem with having an overseas spot free and waiting to see where injuries strike, is delay between recruiting someone and them getting a visa. By time their available play injured player is likely available again. I'd take next month or so off pre season to assess squad and how they gel together, then recruit someone to improve weakest area of squad. On paper I'd say someone to cover halves and fullback but there may be another more obvious weakness that shows up in the training sessions.

agree with the timing mat, but on paper we already have three covers to the halves and two for full back so I would go, as MBugs does, with another prop whether overseas or not

Precisely the point.

I must confess at this point that my favourite player was Ian Van Bellen and I have petitioned the RFL to narrow every pitch by 20 metres, thereby making the game much more exciting.

Ha ha, yeah, Selwyn didn't make much lateral use of the pitch, it's true. IVB was really a prototype Baloo..

It's a little-known fact that Ian was at the vanguard of sports science, most fans thought that his wild-man combover trailing in the wind was just the result of insufficient Silvikrin, but in fact this was designed to break up airflow behind him, very much like jet winglets reduce drag, and this helped him to achieve that incredible turn of pace.