Peter Smith still tweeting today that the club are keen to keep Zak but it's not a done deal.

Saw something in the local Leigh paper only this week suggesting this was going to happen. Look at it from Rohan’s point of view - if Zack stays (I think he will) he still has to allow for the fact that Newman, for all his potential, is extremely prone to injury. Without him you're down to an 18 year old in Edwards or weakening the second row by moving Martin. Sign McDonald and Zack and Myler compete for full back and Myler keeps Austin and Sezer honest in the halves. Makes sense to me.

Have to agree with Vastman here as having seen him play 4 times now he looks a reasonably good championship player but not SL level yet.
However if Smith sees something in him then so be it.
To me it doesn`t make sense unless Zak is moving on and even then he is not going to be ready to step up for some time.
Whilst Vastman states he has no pace that`s not my opinion as he looked to have pace but little in defence.

Nobody's expecting him to go straight into the first team so there's no real connection to Hardaker in this signing. Walker though...

He may have picked up some pace, it can go that way some times. I don't want to knock him because I know he had a top class attitude whilst at Trinity. Late bloomer.

It feels to me like we're building a really strong reserve grade team. Most signings so far won't be playing week in week out, and it seems like they're giving opportunities based on getting them into our system and then seeing if they can compete with first team counterparts without the pressure of being in the 17. That even includes Sangare. He seemed to do well at Toulouse, but wasn't even their best prop.

It seems like a commitment from the club to be on top in all levels of comp, from academy, through to reserves and first team.

The short term issue is that it will take a while for that success to filter through to the first team.