What with the sale of the cricketing half of Headingley, reaching two finals last year and record season pass sales (over 10,000 and still over a month to go before we kick off) we must be the richest club in world rugby.
So why are we going into a new season with just one recognized winger and one that is an inadequate replacement for the guy he is replacing at that ?

Well I do not know and speaking to every other Rhinos fan I know they don’t either.
The rumours regarding the impending arrival of the “Volcano” from the Bulls seem to be losing steam and with no other quality wingers seen loitering around the back of the West stand recently it could just be that we are going into the new super league season with one recognized winger (has that ever been done before?)

Now you cannot argue with Tony Smiths record over the last couple of seasons but I just cannot agree with his assertion that this year’s squad is stronger than last years and I definitely cannot agree that this year’s squad is more balanced.
Is Tony Smith putting on a brave face to cover up some sort of “cock up” on the recruitment side of things? It was my understanding that we had only filled 19 of our 20/20 places and I still believe that to be the case so have we overspent on wages?

Lee Smith is a decent young player but showed last season that he is not ready for the likes of St Helens yet unless he has dramatically improved over the last 2 months and he is not an out and out winger anyway but my money is now on him receiving the number 5 shirt.
I do not want to be too pessimistic but we have Wigan and Saints coming up in the 2nd and 3rd Weeks of super league, if we lose those 2 games our chances of regaining champion status will be greatly reduced before we have even got out of 1st gear. That is why I say we must “Flash the Cash” NOW.

Christmas is out of the way and that can only mean one thing and it is not going shopping with the wife to the pre January sales ¬- the countdown to Super League XI has begun.


We are still World Rugby League Club Champions and the best supported team in Super League and after the youngsters showed the way against ‘Trinity’ on Boxing Day I am optimistic for the new season as long as the “kids” are up to it when it matters.
We have 3 further friendlies against York on Jan 15, Harlequins (we will just have to get used to it) on Jan 29 and the “Champions of South Leeds” Hunslet on Feb 5 before the big kick off at home to Huddersfield on Feb 12.


My only worry is the last time I looked we only had one out and out winger (Scott Donald) and more Props and Second Rows than a Great Britain train on squad.

Jamie Peacock is certainly an adequate replacement for Barrie and will hopefully provide some of the dynamism that I felt was missing last year and Mark O’Neill’s work ethic and tackling will compensate for the loss of McKenna if he stays fit.
I am not sure about Millard for Dunneman but what I am sure of is that Donald cannot replace both Marcus Bai and Mark Calderwood the latter of which I believe is a major loss. To my knowledge we have no Wingers to promote from within so the question has to be - WHEN ARE THE RHINOS GOING TO ANNOUNCE THEIR SIXTH SIGNING OF THE SEASON?

Get another winger sorted out and I will be more than optimistic – Watch this space.


And another thing - with or without a new winger we have recruited better than the Bulls for 2006.