With the recent transfer news I was thinking about the key moving forward is keeping a solid core of players around which a squad can be built. The core are your star players but also are the culture setters. But there are also culture setters who are not necessarily first choicers but players who do a job when picked but drive and protect the standards and culture of the squad. The Fifita news is a funny one on the one hand I don’t think he is a key player but we have seen glimpses that if he stuck around he could be a core player which is why the news is both disappointing and not devastating. So here in a very non scientific way are my core players, those we want to keep and are key right now (now being at least 2 seasons). Our future core players those who we definitely want to keep and will be core in 2-3 years (and remain core for 5-10years). Core players are the culture setters, future core are the culture inheritors and there may be another category of wider culture setters:
Core players:
Launchbury
Robson
J Willis
Shields
Future core:
Barbeary
T Willis
Stooke
Oghre
Odogwu
Umaga /Atkinson
West
Wider culture setters:
Bassett
Cruse
JTA
Gaskell
Jimmy G
Very subjective but I would be gutted to lose any of the first 2 categories and one of the reasons why our injuries have been so devastating is that it deprived us of so many of those two categories and particularly the first one. A team made up of these players would be fantastic now and into the future and give us a chance to really build. It doesn’t stop a star player coming in for two years and adding more but they aren’t essential and so not devastating if they move on.