David Furner

[henry]

Whilst david has been a good player and a equally good club man for wigan, i welcome the disission not to renew his contract.

This will allow one of the quallity young players waiting for a chance of first team rugby a chance.

We have farrell and cassidy with the experiance then wild,tickle,jones,o'loughlin and hock waiting for there chance(o'loughlin and hock were two of the back row that played for gb academy agains australia last year).

The stand out players for the under 17's this year allen,hanson and burns are all back row forwards, so there is more quality to come.

This time last year cowie was thinking over playing another season,if he had bibey whould not have had his chance of first team rugby. Give the young players a chance.

[Mike]

In general I support the idea of offloading a few Aussies and giving some British youngsters a chance. I know there were financial considerations in this case, and we may be a weaker team in the short term, but all in all I think it was the correct decision.

Its just a shame that he went to leeds...

[John M]

David has been great for us and still is but he does seem to be at that stage like Connolly where his body is taking longer to heal and he is missing quite a few games.When you pay big money for a player then you want them on the field as much as possible and if we did decide to renew his contract at the expense of say Cassidy then it would be a huge gamble.We may end up with a player who can do more with the ball in his hands but he may only be fit for a handfull of games.With Cassidy you are almost certain that he will be there week in week out working his blood to water.
Its sad to see David go but it is the right move on Mos part.
Interesting though,Leeds will have one hell of an hard working second row with Matt Adamson and Furner on the field.The only trouble is Adamson is also a bit injury prone.

[AJ]

if both these two can stay injury free in 2003 then IMO leeds will have the best 2nd row in the league. intresting to see what will happen to andy hay now. also the fact furner has only signed for 12months at leeds. not really a long term deal and surely raises the question "is the 12 months s/t at the expense of a younster who could be in the team 7-8 years, or are leeds trying to buy short term success again, sadly i think so