Hardaker would have been a big plus, but its not a disaster if we have more flexibility around the cap moving forward. Assuming MacDonald is our last signing for next season then we must spend wisely when some of the big earners leave. It is terrible that we managed to get to the full cap with a squad lacking quality in so many places. Our starting front row still looks way off Sts, and we don't really have any cover at halfback beyond Myler.

On the plus side, if you'd asked before last season who we should be getting rid of, I would have had Sutcliffe, Briscoe, Dwyer and Mellor top of the list. We've cleaned them out and we hopefully have far better depth moving forward. It at least feels like we've made some of the decisions that should have been made years ago.

it'll be for as long as he can be bothered commuting back to Wigan

we made a mistake keeping him beyond last closed season when he made it clear he wanted to move back to Yorkshire. Will be interesting how his attitude is at Leigh when he's travelling the M62 daily

Why do Leeds always wait to announce signings to try gloss over bad news?!

So no MacDonald either.

Personally, I'd like another full back and centre. This morning I was expecting MacDonald as our new centre and someone to replace Hardaker.

Is the current Leigh full back any good? I suspect they need to offload some quota players and from the limited action I have seen of him he looks ok?!

MacDonald is still likely to come - think people have misinterpreted that news conference (and who wouldn't still be stunned after that revelation).

I agree.
They are still 1 overseas player over the max.
So unless we have a decent overseas prop to come in I would expect MacDonald will be announced soon.

so get rid of sutty and hardaker which leaves us with one talented but injury prone centre.....

and next to no cap space

Yep. Matt Shaw (who has been on the money every time this year) thinks it's happening. Makes sense to me.

Yep.
But in Smith we trust.
You keep forgetting that.
On the other hand Hardaker was offered more so we couldn`t have signed him anyway.

We didn't 'get rid' of Hardaker, he was OOC and offered more money than we were prepared to.

Macdonald def incoming…..