Newcastle looking to future with young rake
By ROBERT DILLON
THE Newcastle Knights have taken the first step towards shoring up their hooking vacancy by signing Shaun Ferguson from the North Tamworth Bears.
Ferguson, 22, was a member of the St George Illawarra Jersey Flegg team who won the 2005 under-19 grand final against Parramatta.
His teammates that season included new Knights recruits Danny Wicks and Chris Houston.
He has signed with Central Newcastle, the Knights' NSW Cup feeder team, and started training with them this week.
The Knights have been searching for new dummy-half options after sacking Terence Seu Seu recently and learning that skipper Danny Buderus would be linking with Leeds Rhinos at season's end.
"He played last season with North Tamworth, who are coached by [former Knights prop] Matt Parsons," Knights coach Brian Smith said yesterday.
"He's quite a talented hooker, but he didn't play much last year.
"It just depends if he gets back to the form he showed at the Dragons in 2005; he could offer a bit of depth to our [NRL] squad."
The Knights have been trying to recruit a quick-fix replacement for Seu Seu, but that has been difficult because the season is under way.
Smith said the Knights would bide their time finding a replacement for Buderus.
"At the moment we've got Danny Buderus and Matty Hilder, who are both in great form, but we'd run into trouble if we lost either of them," Smith said.
"We're not rushing it. We've still got hopes of picking up somebody along the way, but it might be that we go for the long term."
Smith said that he would prefer not to use versatile Michael Young as a stop-gap hooker.