I thought Paea was supposed to be the impact prop, he's done okay but he's well short of where he was a 4 seasons ago. Watts wasn't just a big unit going forward/stopper in defence he had great hands too.
We already have Bienek coming to us next season, if he can make the step up quickly then that might well be a slot that works for us but we make good metres down the middle in any case and I think a more rounded player benefits us more.
Supporting breaks is something we've not being overly good at so IF Bienek is the impact prop for next year then we need to be better at that.
I say a more rounded player because faster pitches will require more athletic type players like Hadley and indeed Fash, we lost Thompson who had a turn of pace but was used as a middle forward although he had a go out wide as a 13 in one home game mid season against Warrington and it looked exciting only for us to go back to our usual stuff. We keep on going for the bang bang approach because that's all that Radford knows, we won't change that style until we get a coach that understands the nuances of a more pass/flowing attack style of play, someone like Sean O'Loughlin would be wasted at our club as an attacking 13.
This is why we have big lads on the wings and eliminates the usefulness of the likes of noggers, Lancaster, Logan etc as we fail to get the ball out wide quickly and be able to utilise pace on the wing, so we rely on brawn instead, which can work but has its limitations.
That St.George game gave us a sample of how we could be playing, expansive in attack and we do have a few examples of that cropping up (seen late in the game) but we go back to our main method which is stifling our attack.
Another impact prop wouldn't surprise me and certainly be an indication of how we are going to play but someone with more guile/hands/athleticism is what I would like to see.
