As for the rest, it's very quiet on the recruitment and retention. With quota spots potentially to play with it will be interesting to see what develops.

I believe Mata'uita is off which would be a real shame, he's been immense. Hurrell I'd replace, there were some rumours about Opacic coming in a couple of weeks ago and that seems to make sense, doesn't quite carry the physical threat but pretty skilful and much better defensively.

I'd lean towards keeping Blake although he's been very hot and cold. I think that's a theme with most Antipodean signings in their first year though, and would expect some improvement. Providing he wants to stay of course.

Burns showed up well on debut and is certainly worth keeping. The rest I can take or leave depending on what cap they take up, who is coming through the academy to the first team.

i think its a fair suggestion and one that should definitely be considered, if the minutes rule does get implemented, but i also think there would be opposition to it. If i take our current pack we could have Havard, O'Neill, Thompson, Faz, Junior and Ellis starting, with Walters, Mago, Dupree, Byrne, Hill, Leeming, Eckersley & Farrimond on the bench, thats pretty impressive, and thats before we get to the upcoming youngsters. Another slightly different slant to it, and it falls into the suggestion you make about all clubs having scholarship, academy, reserves and 1st team (which i completely agree with and have aired my view on this in relation to the IMG gradings) is that in that bench of 8 you need to have at least x homegrown players which is promoting clubs to develop their own players. The other part to having 8 is how many can be used whether that be number of interchanges / number of the 8 that can be used, but all good points for a discussion

Yeh, I think a bigger bench could have merit. It would give more tactical variation to the game and make it easier to bring youngsters on.


I do get the argument that it would benefit "bigger" clubs more, I don't necessarily agree with that but its worth a trial or a discussion at least?

I’d be all in favour of a bigger bench, as a start increase to 6 but 2 of the 6 have to be under 21 at the start of the season.

I agree but it doesn't mean that there should be more substitutions, just a greater choice.

I've always believed that you should have eight players on the bench (substitutes) but but no interchanges, once a player is off he can't return unless it's a hia.
Allow six substitutions from those eight players. At least two of the players should be 21 or under at the start of the season and four should be home grown.