He's a beanpole. Like Kopczak was at that age. When he fills out he will be hard to stop. Kopczak MK2

I definitely think we are ok for props now. Kirk won't let anyone down when called upon. He got a lot more respect from me at Dudley Hill when we played Wigan reserves and he got his nose splattered but still drove the team forward in an Andy Farrellesque way. Just needs to keep getting game time and plenty of breaks between as he is still developing. Our main 5 props are far and away top end championship as a team of props

Was just watching a podcast of an RL journo doing a short program on Widnes's starting 13 as things stand now. Now i know there is a long way to go and recruitment is no where near done yet, but we seem so far ahead of them looking at our squad list. I think our starting 13 would beat the one he put together. They did look a lot stronger when he added the "maybes" such as Gelling, Inu etc but they still didn't appear to have much depth. They have a lot of work to do. Looking at our squad list, we have a quality replacement for every positon. Pre-season starts this week and I'm looking forward to seeing how we'll perform as for the first time in years we have no off-field problems, have a FULL pre-season set by the coach who will be in charge for the season a head, we have kept the core last year squad with some quality additions so its not like a new team needs to gel and they'll qll be together early (apart from those who played internationals) clubs in a good place right now.

No Josh Rickett or Jamal Goodall in the squad number list. Have they left the club?

I thought Milton had left but named in squad numbers.

Rickett was on of group of players who haven't been given number yet. was said they will get a number after their first appearance

Thanks. Seems odd for someone who's played 6 games already for the first team. Must be a bit of a kick in the balls for him, but hopefully has the right effect and motivates him to push for a spot.

Rickett is in the squad. There was a Telegraph and Argus article recently where Kear said at the start of last season they only had Rickett and Ryan as wingers in the squad but now they have Rickett, Ryan, Grant, Hitchcox, Foggin-Johnson and Evans. So I assume he would have been left out of that list if he had left.

He doesn't have a number though and I guess most would think of those with a number as 'being in the squad'. Kear did say that a number younger players would get their chance through the season though and they would get a number when that happened. I strongly suspect Josh is amongst that group.

At the player presentation in the Southbank last Saturday the 31 members of the First team squad were introduced. Kear then brought out 7 players (including Josh) and said that these were the Reserve team squad for 2019. Presumably the side will be padded out with fringe first teamers, academy players and trialists. JK explained that these players would not have squad numbers until they had played a First team game (league or cup) in 2019. He said he'd discussed it with the 7 players and all had bought into it. I don't know if Josh has played first team previously.
Of the other 6 I think 5 are still academy players who haven't yet played first team and one is a new signing.
Anyway, Josh was there on Saturday and is still very much at the club.