Kings of Rugby:
It won't happen, but this season has proven we need to look at the quality of our depth.
Realistically, there's only 3 lads who've proven they are ready for the next step. That's Walters, Junior, Forber and Zak.
You can easily argue that Walters & Junior aren't back-up lads anymore either. They are in the 17 nailed on starters.
Zak and Forber are squad players, but you know they aren't a million miles away either. You don't lose loads when they come in - in fact they offer something different.
Either way, no one will argue that are the four that have stepped up when needed.
The big question is now - Who's after them?
It's probably Farrimond and Hill who are the ones you'd point to as being the next level down. Out of these, Farrimond is a million miles away from dislodging French and Hill is leaving.
Vaughan might be fall into the same category as Hill and Farrimond as in "can do a job, but won't push to start".
Makin, Kerr, Sambou, Mason etc all seem a long way off the conversation.
We need more depth.
Having quality depth is going to get harder with the increase to 14 teams and it will need to come from within more often that not. I think Makin and Kerr can step up for us next season but we probably do need to bring in somebody from outside as a starter, which will then push maybe somebody like Dupree or Mago in to a back up spot.
HKR voting against the increase to 14 teams interested me. I'm not convinced it was done for the wider good of the game and was likely because they're worried that their 'depth' could get picked off, to become starters at other clubs. They survive pretty much solely on players brought in to the club and with 2 more teams in the league, it will become harder for them to fill spots 18-25 with guys like Doro, Brown, Kershaw, Richardson etc because other clubs are likely to offer them more money and more minutes.
