Dustin Cooper. I don't think we've seen the best of him yet, he was only a fringe first grader at the Storm and I think he's still finding his feet. Saying that though I reckon he has the potential to become a devastating Centre, he has a few errors in his game, but with growing confidence, and a bit more experience they will dissappear. He will be one of the players to carry us into the future.
Kirk Reynoldson. A lot of money for little return so far. I'm not convinced he is first grade quality even, the early games that he played were nothing special, he has no variety to his game, when playing prop, he doesn't have an offload, and is purely a take it up man, he doesn't hit the line hard either. As a backrower, he falls short in the agility area, no swerve, no step so to speak, so again he is restricted to just hauling the ball up, you need a backrower to be running angles of your quick blokes near the line, I didn't see any evidence of thatin the games he played. To be fair he hasn't had much game time here and may show more next season, but at the moment, I think he was a waste of money.
Craig Smith. What can you say about him? I'm the first to admit I thought us signing him was a desperate move by a desperate club, and that he would turn out to be passenger. How wrong, he has without doubt been the heart of the team since his first game, he's shown passion, commitment, and has been the leader of our young forwards, I agree with whoever it was said he should be players player, and clubman of the year.
Milton Thiaday. This bloke could become the coup signing of the decade. He gets better every week, is like lightening with the ball in his hands, and will become a try scoring machine next year I reckon running off JOhns, he shows glimpses of it now. I see him as prob the best long term signing the club has made in a long long time. Lets hope he keeps it all together because I think he has the game at his feet and could become a Newcastle favourite.
Danny Vaughan. Saw him play one Premier League game, he came off the bench, showed plenty of starch in his hit ups, and can tackle and hurt, has a good off-load. Could be a good prospect with a good off season and some training.
Dane Campbell. Still only young, and the thing I like about him is he has a great presence on the field, he looks like a natural leader. (though that wasn't evident the other week when he gave the ref a gobfull and got time off for it) He has a fair kicking/passing game, and leads the premier league side around pretty well, he also seems to work well with his 5/8th, and lets Spiteri call the shots when he's on the park, which means he is a very good team player, I like him, and think he will develop into a handy stand by for Johns, I don't see him becoming Johns eventual replacement though, there's a couple of youngsters in flegg that will have a bearing on that I think.
Kurt Hancock. Needs some more development, and a solid off-season to be considered a first grade player. He has been impressive in premier league though, and is an aggressive player.
Jesse Royal. This guy looks great one week and ordinary the next. In his first few games here I thought he would be knocking on the door of first grade in no time especially given the injury toll we had. He just doesn't seem consistant enough to push his case though, he too needs a big off-season.
