So...

Newton replaced by L'Estrange. Change for better.
Jefferies replaced by Kearney. Change for better.
Deacon replaced by Orford. Change for better.
Solomona replaced by Sculthorpe. Difficult to call.
Morrison replaced by Hall. Change for better if Hall stays fit most of season.
Tadulala replaced by Reardon. Break even for mine.
Burgess replaced by ?his younger brothers. Uh Oh.
Cook replaced by ?academy products. Change for better.

I think improvement overall given the number of players who were injury prone leaving.

It's a bit too early to say. A lot depends on Hall, Kearney and L'Strange.

Orford will undoubtedly improve us but a lot depends on Kearney succeeding at stand off and remaining free from injury. Hall will hopefully play in more games than Morrison and that should mean an improvement, we'll miss Morrison's influence though.

Newton was a bit of an enigma last year, all too often he seemed to go off the gameplan and disrupted things on the field yet when he was on song he could be as good as any hooker in the comp. I've not seen enough of L'Strange to say whether he'll be an improvement or not.

Losing Sam is a blow but apart from a handful of games he didn't do much last year. With Solomona we hardly saw him at all. If their replacements have more than a dozen good games between them it'll be an improvement on last year's performances. However on paper we are weaker when you look at the ins and outs.

Reardon I think will struggle to play as well as Tadulala.

Hopefully the likes of the Burgesses, Whitehead, Donaldson and Olbison will improve some more.

Unfortunately I'm still unconvinced that some of our failings of last year will be sorted most notably the leaky defence in the right side. If we're pairing Sheriffe and Sykes again we'll be in trouble.

Isn't it fairer to say Burgess replaced by Sculthorpe?

And Cook replaced by academy products=change for better? How does that work?

And Hall for Morrison=net loss for me.

But overall, I think we have a stronger squad. But I thought the same last year too!

Solomona & Burgess = old fashioned ball handling forwards slightly overweight coming off the bench. Seems like a good fit to me!

I've gone for a lot better, although i'm always optimistic at this time of year. I think that Orford's leadership and organisational skills make him a complete halfback, which means that Kearney can have a free role. I'm really excited about this because he has the real pace and eye for a gap that we have been missing recently, I just hope that we can keep him off the treatment table. Debaser I understand what your saying about Hall, but if he's two thirds as good on the field as Morrison and we get 20+ games out of him I think we're on a winner. I've got my reservations about Reardon on the wing, but things can change yet, and I still have a feeling that he will drop to fullback and Halley will move to the wing.

I'd say we're stronger in some areas but weaker in others.

If we'd managed to hold on to Semi AND brought Reardon in I'd be more confident about our wingers. But if the new guys click, especially Orford and Kearney, then I think we'll be a stronger team this year

I have voted "a bit better" but it's more involved than that.
If the question had been "Is the squad better than that which we were, by and large, [iable to put on the field last year[/i" then it would have been a no-brainer for me.

But Kearney and Orford in place of the errtic Jeffries and the ageing and prone to head-clattering Deacon is a huge leap forward and the rest of the squad needs to be judged with that in the forefront.

As has been pointed out, we had a few "star men" who took to the field very little and did not always shine (to say the least) on every occasion they did. The opposite of what you'd expect from the likes of Glenn Hall (who, don't forget, was keeping Steve Menzies out of the team, much of the time last time they played together in the NRL).

I've gone for a lot better. Purely becuase of the halves we've signed. Le'Strange and Orford have also played together before so the connection should be good.

I'd say an improved squad for sure.

A quality wing and centre, whilst maintaing the key members of the 2010 squad, would see us very strong for 2011 IMO.

Overall a bit better.
Definate improvement in the halves. Even with the loss of Sammy B (on last seasons performance) we have improved slightly in the forwards. With the Reardon/Halley scenario at FB and only one proven quality centre I feel we about the same or slightly weaker in the backs. I would like to have re-signed Semi.