Buying big name marquee players is never an indication of good administration, especially when you look at the big name signings of Adam Blair and Braith Anasta. Both wasting massive cap space (and I know Anasta isn't on big coin)
The club needs to be buying players who suit a particular style that works well with the spine, most notably Brooks and Farah.
I don't think letting Ayshford go was a smart move, but Lulia will prove to be a fairly similar style player. Reddy had to go, just provided nothing most of the time, when he played well he was about as good as Ayshford at his average.
Benji isn't a big loss, he is a big gain.
For once we can start having a reliable game plan and structure. Benji was always an off the cuff type player. Sheens put blinkers and a blindfold on him and put him in a box, stripped him of all his value to the side. He had to go. He was never going to improve, he would have derailed Brooks just like he did with every other genuine halfback we had since Prince left.
So Benji being gone means the team can be built around a genuinely talented halfback. The flow on effect of this is hopefully a dominant side for a decade and an increase in form for Farah who will no longer have to do everything, which will make him even more dangerous as he can inject himself sporadically, not on every tackle.
The big problem with the buys is that they won't make a great deal of improvement to the sides defence, which is a massive issue.
Some more prop depth and some dominant back rowers would've been all we needed to be a dramtically improved side for 2014.
We only need one of Austin, Anasta and Moltzen. None of these are exceptionally better than the other, so two of them are just wasting cap space and squad places in the top 25.
Blair really needs a rocket up his arse in 2014\. He's bludged his way through half his contract, pulling out some semi decent games when the season is over. He doesn't do enough work as a prop, but its the only place to put him so that he does something..
Sironen is going to be a back rower, but I think he should remain in the five-eighth role until Moses is ready, which is likely to be 2015\. It gives Sironen another year to get hardened to the top grade which will do his game wonders.
Shift him to Lock in 2015, where he'll be a Wade Graham style player.
Richards has seemingly been bought purely to kick goals. In the Superleague Grand Final he had a woeful first half and some could easily argue that he was the reason for Warrington scoring two quick fire back to back tries to give them a 2 try lead before the break.
He was lucky Joel Monaghan got KO'd in the second half.
