Given that news on Kai from his first season was that he might not stay, mainly due to a homesick girlfriend (apparently) I'm more than happy with how much longer he stayed. He's easily worth an NRL paycheque and while I'm slightly concerned about player churn at the moment we can still trust the plan

We'll miss him but he deserves his chance in the NRL. Wish him all the best, he's been top notch for us.

Hello all. I hope this is not true. A real top quality edge forward in his prime, he will be really difficult to replace. He has been unplayable at times. We only need compare with our other edge to see the difference in quality and class that Kai brings. He is one of 3 players who it will be almost impossible to improve upon alongside Amone and Lam Jr. I worry that Amone might also go this year which will leave us really short. Our pack is what wins us games and O'Donnell and Amone are massive parts of that.
That said, I wish him all the luck in the world.

We won’t get anyone as good as O’Donnell as a replacement, players that are so strong in both attack and defence are quite rare. Similarly, I don’t think we’ll get as good a ball playing 13 as Asiata.

What we need to do is, if we lose 3 or 4 of our Dream Team players, replace them with 5 or 6 players that are top 6 standard

I think there is always going to be a transitional element to that plan when it involves bridging such a steep gap from being a blank canvas at a yo-yo club in the championship, to the ultimate aim of being a regular playoff challenger. A lot of the UK players were all on 'overs', where they were paid above their value to take a risk on a club still in the championship at the time, and a lot of our imports were of such quality that they were always going to be on a timer until they were heading back to Oz. This year and next year for me were always going to be about adding the puzzle pieces of players that can be with us longer term with some short term x factor sprinkled in, something we've made some progress on with the additions of Hanley, Trout, Norman, Halton, McNamara and hopefully some from the likes of McIntosh, Brogan, Baxter etc can kick on.

There is an evident plan with the older heads in the team that they are getting 1 year deals offered on reduced terms back to their true market worth which they can take or leave - Charnley, O'Brien and Hughes(according to press) have accepted theirs and others like Hardaker and Holmes have opted to move on. It will be freeing up a pretty significant chunk of cap for us.

Whilst it's sad to see the likes of O'Donnell, Asiata etc move on it brings new opportunities for recruitment from a better bargaining standpoint, as an established SL club capable of being in the conversation for trophies and capable of developing fringe NRL players like Amone, O'Donnell, Ipape and Lam into genuine quality players. I'm very much looking forward to see what Chester and Lam are cooking up for next years additions - one thing for sure is you can bank on quality in our imports, the track record they have is incredible and shows no sign of fading with Moylan's addition this year.

Brilliant post Rob. Agree with everything you say.

Adrian Lam has been the most important retention. He is after all the assistant Aussie Coach and no doubt the future Aussie coach which will put Leigh in good stead for future quality imports.
The Challenge Cup win has certainly put Leigh in the shop window for sure. What we need now is a really strong second half to the season and move up that Ladder because catching the top 6 is not impossible.

I have faith in that we will still have a fantastic team next year. Who knows, there may be retentions for whom we didn't expect to retain, so it isnt doom and gloom.

We need to go and get James McDonnell from Leeds and bring him back to Lancashire on a 3 year deal. Like for like replacement for Kai.

Leeds have McDonnell contracted for next year

I wouldn't mind having James McDonnell back, but he did sign a 1 year extension earlier this year taking him to end of next season so it's whether Leeds would be willing to let him go. I wouldn't mind having Sam Stone back from Salford to be honest, his contract is up at the end of the year and he's still only 26. I was quite sad we had to let him go at the end of 2022 and in hindsight he would've been a far better option than Nakubuwai or Seumanufagai.