Regardless of the one year deal thing Austin has asked to be released to go to cas for 7 games, that to me doesn’t scream of a a player we should be offering a deal to.

Said I wasn’t impressed with the signing in the first place, nothing that has happened in the 18 or so months since has changed my mind. He’s always been a rocks and diamonds type, just not what we need or needed.

The signing was and is typical of a lower cost option, someone who didn’t have that many other good options at the time, and represents pretty much everything that was and remains wrong with our recruitment strategy.

Agree Batley

Couldn’t agree more!

They're a "human resource" like the rest of us. This isn't football.

Trying to buy a team has never worked. Recruitment should be about developing our own academy players.

To my mind the academy coach is just as important as the first team coach. If we don’t focus on our academy players we lose them to other clubs who will give them regular first team rugby

You'll only ever get 1-3 who will progress from each cohort though so your recruitment has to be everybit as good maximising those spaces available and providing experience. We've got both wrong for too long and now there's a greater emphasis on the integration of the younger players, which is great to see, we still cant seem to get the other side of the equation right.

Last sacked at Cas. Powell incoming?

From Austins side of things, that gives me a little smirk.

Austins gone from saying to NRL clubs to come and get him, to signing for cas and supposedly signing for Featherstone within a month.

It’s not been the best month has it.