Agreed re Elia at Hooker, he is a strong mobile, modern hooker and his darts are getting better.

The thing that strikes me is that competition is very strong in each position, with at least three good strong players per position.

Some will have to step up to the mark, such as Herron. But let's start the season with hope and trust in Gussy and his coaches. I am very encouraged by the signings.

If we're talking about general matchday squad for the large part of this season, it would be something like this for me:

1 Marler
2 Baldwin
3 Sinckler
4 Symons
5 Lewies
6 Clifford
7 Robshaw
8 Dombrandt

9 Care
10 Smith
11 Ismaiel
12 Saili
13 Marchant
14 Goneva
15 Brown

16 Crumpton
17 Botta
18 Collier
19 Cavubati
20 Chisholm/Lawday
21 Landajo
22 Lang
23 Ibitoye/Murley

I honestly don't know how good Ismaiel is going to be but it's nice to have some sheer weight in our backline - something I feel we've lacked a little in recent years.

What strikes me most of all is how much better the bench looks.

...with Murley and Ibitoye rotating.

I think that the point of Gussie's signings is to enable frequent rotation, so many of the players you and others have pointed to will get rotated game time and players can hop in/out of the match day squad without having to play themselves in, as Sarries players do so well.

Evans has lots of potential. As an out and out 7, he’s a different type of player to the rest of our back row options. Basically, a younger version of Wallace with the potential to be significantly better.

I expect Evans to be mentored by Robshaw and be his long term replacement. So expect to see to feature in cup games and when Chris needs a rest.

Robshaw is 33 now and by no means a write-off. But if you look at the Saracens format, they slowly integrate a player in and let players wind down. Jamie George was like this with the likes of John Smit and Shalk Brits. He didn't get to be a full-time guaranteed starter until he was 25!

Evans is 22, so he has a lot to prove but also provides real competition at 7!

The system has been effective for Sarries, so let's hope we can benefit from this and improve on it.