duke street 10 wrote:Ellis may prove a shrewd signing. The negative comments of some is understandable for those who have supported the club who have seen us reach the top table,only to make bang average signings in the past and gone backwards.
Mid 90's when that great sides with the 3 kiwis prominent who then left who did we get?...Richard Goddard,Adrian Flynn and Brendon Tuuta (harsh to compare to Nikau mind).
In the early noughties when Raper had us competing we bought in the likes of Darren Shaw,Logan Campbell & Andrew Purcell.
I hope the new signings prove me wrong, but so far kind of concerned we are on a rinse & repeat cycle.
I could understand more if this was a side that hadn't just finished top of the league and made a Grand Final (which no other Cas side has ever done). The simple fact for me is that you always have your first choice 17 and then an underbelly of squad player who can step in for that 17 when injured.
Barring Hardaker, none of the others were in our starting 17. A starting 17 which for large parts was good enough to finish top of the league. If the team can reach the same high standards again, why do we need to waste money on recruiting another top player to dislodge another top player. One of the things I've heard over CTSC meetings across the last few years is about not causing discontent within the squad. Players should want competition for places but they also shouldn't feel like they aren't good enough - AND especially after last season.
We've also had issues over recent years where we've blown our budget on a squad of 20 top level players and had naff all back-up. We actually have done so well over recent years because of our squad depth compared to other teams.
We now have 22 first team players, plus Maher, Egodo, Gill, Douglas and Trueman. We're 4 players short of where we started last season and we added Foster and Larroyer along the way (I'm not including Crooks as he was never part of our squad last year).
A full-back and another prop and we'll be tip top I think.
Monaghan - Lo
Patrick - Clark
Larroyer - Wardle
Fitzsimmons - Foster (who joined mid-season)
T Holmes - Trueman (who wasn't part of our squad)
Rangi - Ellis
That leaves Lynch, Million, Sheehan and Hardaker to replace from our original 30. Million and Sheehan can be replaced by Jacques O'Neill/Cory Aston (he has played a bit at hooker for Sheffield) and Sheehan replaced by Pat Diskin potentially?
That leaves Lynch and Hardaker. Prop we know is a must signing for us and then Hardaker is a bit of an unknown until we know the situation with his contract.