So I had a major update from my source tonight as I asked over the weekend was there any update with recruitment after the Sivo deal was announced I asked about are we looking to bring in another forward.
Ian Blease has reportedly enquired about singing John Bateman for the 2025 season.
Now I was told that Blease contacted West Tigers about a season long loan for 2025 with West's contributing towards his wages and if Bateman was to be a success in 2025 we would look at taking him on permanently in 2026. He's wanting to try meet with Bateman now he's in the country playing for England so that could happen in next couple of weeks.
It's been quite public that West Tigers are looking to offload Bateman after apparently falling out with their head coach Benji Marshall. So I could see West being interested if their isn't a mass amount of clubs chasing Bateman.
I was also told the club is very happy with the recruitment ahead of next season and are only looking at 1 more signing if the right deal came about so if this Bateman deal happened we wouldn't be bringing in another forward/ signing such as Liam Byrne etc.
If the Bateman deal happens I can however see this that he'd get the 11 shirt, Mcdonnell would get 12 and then Bentley would move to 16 and act as middle/ back row interchange like he was playing under Arthur at the end of last season. Having a rotation of Bateman/ Mcdonnell/ Bentley & Gannon creates healthy competition between them all.
My only slight concern would be that the 4 players I've named above are all in the same mold smaller back rowers with a high work rate it does lack a bit of punch for me but we did ok with JJB & Ablett as our back rowers for nearly a decade and they we're workman like backrowers.
Overall if this happened I don't think it's bad business and smart business as well from Blease as it would only be a loan and we wouldn't be stuck with Bateman if he had a poor season and didn't perform like we would if we bought him from Wests.
Would rather have Agar or Rohan back before this guy. The bloke has more lives than a sack of cats. He's managed to exceed the likes of John Kear in how far a coach can milk one Challenge Cup win... Can someone explain why he's still a top coach? If he was at an English club he would have been done years ago.
To be fair, he has 20 years experience, coached at every level in Europe, has a fair amount of experience coaching in Australia and NZ. He's taken Catalans from the million pound game, to grand finalists, league leaders and CC winners. It's a very solid record.
He wouldn't be my choice though.
These are my thoughts too, I wouldnt pick him but hes not done a bad job at Catalan and I'd defs have him over Smith and Agar again. We could do a lot worse than McNamara but could also do better.
Would rather have Agar or Rohan back before this guy. The bloke has more lives than a sack of cats. He's managed to exceed the likes of John Kear in how far a coach can milk one Challenge Cup win... Can someone explain why he's still a top coach? If he was at an English club he would have been done years ago.
To be fair, he has 20 years experience, coached at every level in Europe, has a fair amount of experience coaching in Australia and NZ. He's taken Catalans from the million pound game, to grand finalists, league leaders and CC winners. It's a very solid record.
He wouldn't be my choice though.
These are my thoughts too, I wouldnt pick him but hes not done a bad job at Catalan and I'd defs have him over Smith and Agar again. We could do a lot worse than McNamara but could also do better.
Holroyd has renewed with us according to beeb. Thinking on that once Burgess, Hill and Walmsley hang up, there arent that many British props who are both good and big...
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