Of the players we can ditch:



Fitzgibbon: Great player, but retirement beckons



Lauaki: Don't think I've ever seen such an overhyped player in the FC shirt, everytime he gets the ball you expect fireworks...but he goes off like a wet sparkler. No better than the infamous Hutch Maivia.



Washbrook: Hasn't nailed a position down after all of these years, and has sadly been made more and more average by successive FC coaching regimes.



Other players I would ditch if we could end their contracts:



Sharp: His errors/failings could be excused if he were 18-21 and new to SL level, but at 25 to be still making these errors is criminal.



Radford: As with Fitzgibbon, once a top workhorse...now a worn-out donkey who slows the play down.



Horne: Re-signed on sentiment only. Never has been creative or been able to kick...but previously used his pace, work rate and good positioning to make up for it. Now the pace has gone he's just anonymous.

I agree a lot with this point, but there are still a few players that I do think we need to be looking at replacing: Horne, Long, Radford/Dowes (I'd keep one and lose the other, as should have happened at the end of last year), Fitzgibbon, Turner, Phelps, Obst, Gleeson. And if we fancy some of our younger backrowers, add Washbrook, as he's pointless played anywhere else.



Obviously it all depends if we [ican[/i replace them, I think a couple of those will be/have been kept because we haven't been able to bring in/produce players of the necessary quality.

Agree with most of them except Turner. As a 6 he is truly awful, but playing at centre he is starting to develop into a useful player.

Gotta keep Turner - been playing well at centre and is young.



Why we signed Horne is the question we've got to ask ourselves. Hes done nothing for years. If we let him go, which other top 6 team would take him on?

Are these the same errors that Briscoe and Whiting have been making while Sharp hasn't even been in the side? Because we've been shipping tries on either wing due to the stupid tactic of compresing the defensive line. We could have the Origin wingers in the side and would struggle.

Believe me, you wont get squad players for the money that Dowes and Washbrook will be on. They will both stay with us IMO.



Lauaki is widnes bound.

Fitz will retire.

Unless we can get Obst off quota then i would try to engineer an early release as Heremaia will be starting hooker next season with Houghton off the bench.

Horne is staying but happy with that. He is on a reduced contract, and although i think he will be back up to Ellis and Seymour, he has shown for the most part this season he is up to it.

Yes Fitzy to retire, get rid of Lauaki don't care where he is going, we have O'Meley,Moa,Radders at prop so you can keep Dowes and have Aldous given more game time.

Sorry Wildie but get rid of Washy we have Manu,Tickle,Westerman would rather Kent get a game or Green or Cunningham we need to give the young lads a go sooner rather than later. Washy covers 6 and next year we have Horney and Seymour for that postion, 9 we have Houghton and Heremaia and 13 we have Westy,Whiting and Green if needs be.

I have been Turner's biggest critic but he has been one our best player for the last 6 games so keep him as a centre only. Might as well give Reece Lyne a good run in the last 5 games of the season. Also get rid of Burnett and Sharp too.

Strong rumours we've picked up luaki.



Surely Fitzgibbon is worth another year as he's been your best player along with Manu.

Fitz is an awesome player but he is spent now tbh..



I hope you get the best out of Lauiaki as Agar has not managed to.



Manu will be with us for a long time hopefully!!!

I wonder if the Wigan message-boarders will just call him Hame?

Good points being made about the substandard coaching meaning that it's quite hard in most cases to truly judge the players. Therefore the best question to ask is in the hypothetical situation that we have someone of Maguire/ Tony Smith standard coming in next season, who would you give another go to?



On that basis, I'd cut loose:



Fitz (retiring)

Long

Radford

Horne

Obst (only because of the ridiculous Heremaia signing)

Washbrook (not his fault that he's been wasted but probably too late to recover the situation now)



I've often thought to myself with some proper coaching Lauaki could be devastating and equally, how much more devastating would Willie Manu be if Tony Smith had been coaching him for the last few years?



The decision to hand Horne a 2 year contract reminds of when Bill Clinton dished out a load of pardons to his mates during his final days in office.

Horne,(how he got a two year contract is beyond me,1 year as cover perhaps)Lauaki,dowes,sharp,radford,long,fitzy,washbrook,all players listed here can do 'a job' but if we are looking to compete with the top 4 then we need a good clearout.

agar isnt up to it so that doesnt help matters and then you have the board who have just creamed the profits for the last few years without proper investment in building the team/getting a go forward coach.....still at least we are making money was their motto,hope adam pearson works better with james rule and we start to see improvement next season with the players we have got

Anybody who thinks Horne will be here acting as cover is kidding themselves.

indeed, he'll be first choice, and week in, week out, he'll keep trying the drop off ball on the inside, and we'll all get frustrated that it doesn't work.

Sir Fitz is fantastic in defense and gives his all, but he slows our attack down so much whilst also stifling Westermans game. For me Fitz should retire!

Don't you think that rather depends on who's the coach? Doubt a new coach will keep selecting a player who's not producing the goods, given the options we have in the halves next season.

Only time will tell, I suspect some of the "business" done by the previous board may be undone by AP if he possibly can.

The thing is we heard from a number of people how we would see new and improved players when they moved to club's with a decent coach but we dont seem to have seen this with Graham Horne, Mike Burnett, Craig Hall or Tommy Lee.

Hardly looking at players who were likely to achieve more elsewhere though, it's players like Yeaman, Briscoe, Moa etc. that would benefit from improved coaching.

You could argue that Briscoe and Moa have benefited from being coached by Agar?

If you'd been on drugs, you possibly could.

So you dont think Sam Moa is a better play now than the one that first arrived?

He couldn't have gotten any worse, is that Agar, is it O'Meley, is it Fitz? no idea

Whilst I still don't think they've looked like top players, apart from Hall I do think they've looked better than they did for us.

That ploy was only effective when sides viewed Horne as a running threat and had to pay attention to him.