My only reservation regarding the squad if I’m being hypercritical is second row , we have king , kav n gee which are all top players then Oakley and Forster the two young lads , the interviews with Grix regarding the two young ones seems to suggest they’re not quite ready and they’ll have to prove themselves this year , especially Oakley who needs to ‘ dominate’ when out on loan to champ 1 clubs which seems to suggest he hasn’t been . I asked Matt shaw about anymore signings on his rugby league live yesterday, he said ‘ relatively quiet but maybe a couple more signings, see how the next few weeks pan out ‘

My Christmas wish is Fax hit the ground running and we don t play catch up as the past couple of years.
As has been said we have fliers across the park, just hope other teams are scared of our backs and the forwards dominate.
Looking forward to a great season.

There are several others who have played 2nd row in the past who no doubt could do again if needed - Larroyer, Tangata and Fairbank - with Maizen signing I'm now pretty happy with the numbers and quality of the squad. In fact when everyone is fit Grix is going to have a challenge keeping some very good players happy who are not getting in the 17, in both the forwards and backs.

Let me digress my thoughts, we have finished 3rd on two consecutive seasons on the back of a rebrand and new coach , my feeling is that Dave Grayson and the new board have spotted a window of time where fax have an opportunity of success ( my personal opinion is that if Simon doesn’t achieve superleague with fax within the next 2 seasons he will be snapped up by an existing super league club perhaps Warrington given his affiliation with that club) I genuinely believe Grix is one of the best young out and out coaches in rugby league, when I look at other coaches in the championship and some of the super league there is no one I would rather have ( side note craig lingard appears to be an exceptional coach certainly at this level, Rohan smith another ) The takeover to me coincides with the process of licensing, Dave Grayson as said the reason for the consortium was to give more funds to Grix , the championship will be a lot closer than previous seasons, as far as I am concerned now is the time to challenge for promotion, a quality 2nd row and half is what we need to challenge.

If we role play last season into this our injuries early season we’re , woodburn hall , gee , Knowles , worthington , we were lucky in the halves compared to Robinson and Harris the year before, do we have the quality to replace them at the same level with the current squad, I think not , that is the basis of my reasoning.

think loan signings can cover any emergency

We have twice finished in third place on the back of slow starts. That's where we need to improve. We have the players and coach to do just that. Up The Fax.

I suspect I met you today briefly in the dusty miller in longwood , as you say up the fax .

You did indeed. Nice to talk to you. I said to the wife I knew your face, but didn't know your name.

I couldn't agree more the drop off in quality in who would fill in the halfs role if we were to lose a first choice halfback to a long term injury would seriously harm our chances for promotion. And the only problem if we went down the loan route would be the player getting recalled which as happened to most sides. All in all it will be interesting if we do bring in a few more players as to what positions they cover and are they on loan or not.

Not sure there's a realistic solution to the extra half back problem - we had 3 really good halves on the books last season - I'm sure when Corey Aston signed he would have believed he'd have a good shot at being one of the starting halves. Problem now is we're going into the season with a very successful established half back pairing so any new signing would be coming in knowing probably his only chance of playing would be injury. It was great having the luxury of Cory as backup last season, but I don't think the club can afford the luxury of having one of their higher earners sitting on the sidelines for most of the year. I know sods law means almost certainly one of halves will be crocked on day 1 - don't like loans in such a pivotal position but that may be only alternative