Yes agree with this. Credit where credit is due if this comes off plus Miramovski.. (or whatever he is called

) we're still light up front though imo

I'd chuck 350k in for Croft and Ackers. It's horrible situation for Salford fans to be in, but better the club gets the money it needs than getting their bones picked for free on the back of relegation or insolvency.

I really want Hull to go for Ackers. 2024 is Houghton's last, and there are some good kids in the academy - Balmforth, Hodgson (Josh's Nephew), and Moy - so an experienced head would be good for a few years

I would personally give Johnson a chance at 9 before signing over his head, unless the new 9 is exceptional.

I think a higher priority is another big body for the pack with some strike. We need to be more difficult to handle in the middle than we are, and to be able to keep applying pressure even if we get one or two injuries.

We are also operating under cap so we can’t just upgrade every position; we also have contract negotiations to have with the likes of Newman and Martin next year so we need to think about cap availability not just this year but for the future too.

Johnson is no where near a weekly starting super league hooker from what we've seen so far.

If we have a top non quota senior prop on ice, fair enough. That pretty much limits the conversation to Burgess and Sutton. If they haven't, the current England hooker would be an excellent choice. I'm a long time fan of Johnson too, but I'm not going overboard about one off the bench performance against a beaten Cas side. Unless he can really improve his defence we're going to lose a lot of rucks against big sides next season. That's why O'Connor gets picked. As we know, his distribution is pretty average. There is a good chance neither will be near an international player. Recruiting spine positions from the NRL is very costly and if we could bring in an English one (Ackers) for next year, it would be very tempting. As previously reported, it appears we've already been looking.

Agree fully on the hookers - if we really are weighing in heavy with signings it's no time to gamble on projects in the spine

All good points - I’ll say though that if we sign a senior hooker over JOC and CJ we are likely to lose one or both lads. That may or may not be a loss.

CJ was England Academy hooker back in the day - I agree Clueso I’ve not been overly impressed with him since he returned to the fold, but he is the most natural 9 we have.

I’d be happy the Harvey Smith signing and we do have another couple of prospects in our academy.

For me I’m not convinced we can fix every issue we have in one season, and we will need to prioritise. It’s alright saying Ackers but can we afford him after Frawley, Miller, Goudemand, Croft, Momirovski, Hudson coming in (in theory?). Dunno.

Do you think a senior prop is going to come cheaper? As for Harvey Smith, aside from the fact that he is a show jumper, I can't see how signing a teenager to complement a 21 and 22 year old (as well as blocking young Aldridge) would make sense.

We were linked with Eseh and Smith from Wakey so these are “warm leads”.

Eseh would be cheaper than Ackers by some distance yes, but not offer the same impact.

I think CJ after another full pre-season and some better /
more consistent players around him would do a job for us. The club will make that call but we will lose him if we bring someone else in I’d say.

Aldridge and Corbett are both good prospects too - again the club will make a call but we were linked with Smith (however good the source was…)

Do you think we need to sign a new hooker for next season?

To get us back to the summit of SL we need both a top quality senior prop and top quality senior hooker. Given that are looking at English players, and operating under the restraints of the salary cap I think we can only do one this year. My preference would be a very good prop (Burgess/Sutton) but if that isn't happening I think we should look at a very good hooker. Ackers would fit the bill.

Given we’ve lost/got rid of the following from our 30 man squad from the start of the season, I’d say we can;

Tetevano
Sezer
Austin
Leeming
Nene
Walters
Tindal
Hooley (tbc)

All on top of losing Hardaker, Dwyer and Sutcliffe from the end of last season