To be fair, our 2 first choice wingers are very injury prone and miss a lot of games.

Ash Handley isn't particularly injury prone

So its now announced, 2 year deal. I cannot for the life of me get my head around this. It's completely pointless. His best position is Wing and he's not better than Handley. He might be better than Fusitua but only because he is actually on the pitch. If he replaces Fusitua in the team we have one hell of a cap problem as Dave costs an arm and a leg.

We couldn't talk to him about joining until after Zak had already rejoined, so we've either disregarded signing Zak for longer, or broken the rules on talking to player.

Article in YEP talks about him as an option for Centre (he can't pass) or Fullback (he can't catch) so their just platitudes.

This is first class rubbish as a signing when we have desperate need elsewhere on the park. Massive mistake.

Seems like he's more a back up centre than a winger https://youtu.be/9tVveQBrafE

Seems like he's more a back up centre than a winger https://youtu.be/9tVveQBrafE

bats...
you are 100% correct

Agree. I quite like Olpherts, thought he was Cas best attacking threat against us in the last game of the season. His stats are very good and put him up there with some of the best attacking players in SL. Yes he has iffy hands, but lets hope Smith can make him a better player, it's amazing what a good coach can do as we've seen.

I think we can't keep Zak that's why he's been signed. On top of that Sutcliffe and Briscoe have gone and Newman and Fusitua injury issues have been huge. Nene McDonald coming in is a good signing.

Mate, I feel like I'm being hard on the bloke, but truth is I just don't rate him as highly as others do, and he offers nothing we couldn't have covered from within the squad already so it seems like a waste of cap space when we have much more pressing areas to address than reserve Winger or Centre (both of which push other younger contracted players further from the first team experience they need).

This signing makes no sense no matter how you look at it.

We can't keep Zak because of signings like Derrell Olpherts.

If that's correct then I agree with you completely but from what i am hearing that's not the case. There is no way Rohan would believe bringing in Olpherts is better than keeping Hardaker....

Ah but in Smith we trust!
Hooley another that I don`t understand but at least he has youth on his side.
With regards Olpherts, he is certainly an upgrade on Briscoe but I cannot understand how we sold it to him.
I`m sure he hasn`t come here on the basis that Fusitua gets a lot of injuries so you are likely to play.