1
If McDonald is looking after himself a lot of things become clearer.
Signing Prior makes replacing McDonald less of a priority, we can elevate somebody from WTS or a youngster from interstate if we have 2 genuine experienced super rugby players.
JW was an interesting watch in the Pacific Nations Cup, in the first game I saw him, he came on, played well, scored a try and looked as good if not better than everybody else on the field (Locks that is) In his second game he looked a little overrated and penalty prone, not making much impact. It'll be interesting to see which player he really is.
RE who we need, I'd suggest that we don't really NEED an 8th man, but that would be really nice. we have plenty of guys we could build into 8, but there are gaps all across our backrow (some as a starter, some as a reserve) remember we lost Boog and struggled to find a replacement at 7 this year (Ollie Callan looks to be a good option there) We've lost Stander, but he wasn't starting regularly by the end of the season and we have Tim Anstee, Jeremy Williams, Jackson Pugh who are all options for 6/8 and one of those could step up, Ollie has also played there (once for a great outing and once not so good) for my money, unless we can find an established option who is a blockbusting ball runner for either 6 or preferably 8 I'd be elevating Alex Masibaka, who seemed to do a pretty good job there on debut and let him fight it out with the existing guys for a spot.
Tiatia or Mataele might play 13 and that would serve 2 purposes (one good and one bad) we'd have a blistering set of outside backs, dangerous running from anywhere but it'd put a lot of pressure on our fullback (Strachan) who has one pretty good year, but he isn't Rob Kearney.....actually I'm gonna go with YET on that call. Certainly we need injury cover in the centres and we might see Hegarty suit up in 15 a bit to take pressure of Strachan.
I think we could survive without another big signing, but I'm pretty confident that survival isn't the game plan, so a few more big signings will help.