I would say olpherts may be marked as starting winger with fusitua (given his injury record) the player covering the wing, centre positions.
So

Myler and back up Hooley
Handley and back up tindall
Olpherts and back up roberts
Newman and back up edwards
McDonald and back up fusitua or fusitua and back up Simpson
Sezer and Austin with back up myler moving up or sinfield.

And before anybody starts, fusitua isn’t out of contract and Hardaker is. Secondly, Hardaker is 31 and wants two years, he may be a better full back than myler but myler has signed a new deal recently. Hardaker is a good centre but he isn’t a centre and doesn’t want to play centre.

I don’t have any huge concerns given his age, his record and where we are in terms of rebuilding things with Rohan.
Bottom line if smith really wanted him then we would find a way to keep him wouldn’t we. Smith has got almost everything right so far and I am more than happy to back him on this

fusitua would be a bloody expensive back up player

Yes absolutely, but that isn’t down to Smith is it. Fusitua has another year so unless he wants to leave then we are stuck with him for a year. You cannot have him down as playing every week so he ends up as an expensive back up. Hardaker is either first choice full back (which makes no sense with myler on a longish new contact) or maybe first choice centre and utility value. As I said the big difference is Hardaker is out of contract and fusitua isn’t.

We need a centre so that’s either Hardaker or a specialist centre we bring in. I think smith may see value in a specialist centre who is a bit bigger so unfortunately there isn’t any space for Hardaker

This is my fear as well. We have lost a lot of experienced first team players and so far only replaced with kids/championship players who may or may not make the grade. Allowing Zak to leave on top is madness in my opinion.

He’s the best full back we have, he’s more than handy at centre and can even cover on the wing in an emergency/injury during a game for example.

God forbid we play players in their actual best position.

Its official, Walker to the bulls

https://www.therhinos.co.uk/2022/10/19/ ... ord-bulls/

https://www.therhinos.co.uk/2022/10/19/ ... ord-bulls/

I think it’s very telling that despite his young age and clear talent, no one in SL seemed keen on the risk, likely due to injury.

Wish him well at the Bulls, hopefully he can rebuild his career.

Assuming he gets fit, he needs to develop a passing game. Myler isn't a great halfback but he's a lovely passer out wide. If Walker had that in his game he'd be a very different proposition. All the best to him, I personally don't think the ridiculous hype about him was ever justified, but if he stays fit and works on his game he may well end up back in SL.

If we were up to the maximum cap last season which I find hard to believe .
And now we have players like Briscoe, Walker, Sutcliffe, Thompson and Dwyer leave.
We are bringing in several nobodies (with potential) at a considerable reduction to those mentioned above.
Yet we cannot afford Zak tells me it is either lies or Tetavano, Fusitua and Prior are on a hell of a lot more than we what think.
Very poor management from the likes of Hetherington and Sinfield and questions should be asked how we have got to this stage.

I'm not too worried about the squad. Think we'll bring maybe one or two more in. If RS managed to get our current squad to a GF, then he can work wonders with the next lot.

He's clearly viewing a long term project with the young players he is bringing through, but we've still got most of our first choice 17 in place for next season, so why can't we make another charge for the top.

I'd be more comfortable with another centre and a prop, but it's hard to argue we're not more balanced and agile as a squad than last season.

It sounds like we could have signed Hardaker once we let Walker go, but he'd already agreed to sign somewhere else. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027

It sounds like we could have signed Hardaker once we let Walker go, but he'd already agreed to sign somewhere else. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027

Quote ="Jack Burton"It sounds like we could have signed Hardaker once we let Walker go, but he'd already agreed to sign somewhere else. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027'" Yep, reads as if we couldn't offer him a big enough contract as Leigh have done. From the looks of it another addition is coming in with the money they were offering Zak, assume that will be Nene McDonald.

Quote ="Jack Burton"It sounds like we could have signed Hardaker once we let Walker go, but he'd already agreed to sign somewhere else. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027'" Yep, reads as if we couldn't offer him a big enough contract as Leigh have done. From the looks of it another addition is coming in with the money they were offering Zak, assume that will be Nene McDonald.

Quote ="Jack Burton"It sounds like we could have signed Hardaker once we let Walker go, but he'd already agreed to sign somewhere else. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027'" I read it slightly differently, I read it as we cleared cap space and made him an offer, but he got a better more lucrative offer elsewhere, as good as Zak is part of the reason we are in a SC mess is paying players too much, so not doing it again makes sense.

Quote ="Jack Burton"It sounds like we could have signed Hardaker once we let Walker go, but he'd already agreed to sign somewhere else. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027'" I read it slightly differently, I read it as we cleared cap space and made him an offer, but he got a better more lucrative offer elsewhere, as good as Zak is part of the reason we are in a SC mess is paying players too much, so not doing it again makes sense.

Yea, it could be that. I suppose we'll know more once the length of his Leigh contract is announced.

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…..