I thought of that. I think he will play origin. Our club recruitment has gone to shit last year. At the time we thought he was heading back to QLD. but when he signed with you guys I was shocked. Now we lost kikau and Lenui, hopgood would have taking that left edge until Yeo retired. Hopefully Hoskings can filled that void.
I think our cap issues come down to the fact the core group of players we still have in Yeo, fish, edwards, luai leota, marto and Nath have required upgrades, some of them significant. The ones we are looking to extend over the next 12 months will probably get upgrades again. Basically we have the same group of players costing us a bigger chunk of the cap meaning we have less to spend on the rest of the team. They are better players now no doubt but we still need depth across the park and in the reserves. I seriously worry what will happen with guys Tago, Turuva, May etc if we manage to extend all of the senior guys we are looking to extend, We certainly wont keep all of them,
When you add in that we seem totally unwilling to trust any young forward as a regular first grader(leniu being the only exception)at the moment tor forwards Penrith right now looks like a great place to develop through the junior grades but if you are talented enough to progress into first grade its probably best to leave. . I get there is a win now attitude but really Hopgood was ready if we were willing to rely on him instead of feeling the need to go out and get Garner and Hosking.