This week Wakefield Trinity and Hull KR agreed a surprise swap deal which saw Will Dagger join Trinity to address their fullback problems whilst Corey Hall went the other way.
However, losing such a talented player like Hall has been criticised.
Thus, Wakefield boss Mark Applegarth has defended the decision on BBC Radio Leeds.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that we’d been desperate for a full-back that’s established shall we say? With our current situation and some of the senior heads being out and as much as I do like throwing youngsters in, like we did with Robbie Butterworth, you’ve got to do what’s right for the club and the individual.
“Robbie, as I said straight after in the press conference, that game will have stood him in good stead so that he knows what is needed at this level in the long term.
“We needed someone here and now and short term solutions. We have to be creative in how we go about getting players in. It’s no secret that we haven’t spent the cap and what money we’ve spent is the money we’ve got to play with.
“When it came up that we could get a player like Will Dagger in, but it would cost us a player like Corey Hall we’ve got to do what’s right for the club, in the short term as well as the long term.
“So my from my point of view I like Will Dagger as a player, I think he’s got some real strong attributes to him and we knew we needed a full-back of that calibre.
“Now in the centre position at the club we’ve obviously got Reece Lyne, Samisoni Langi and Corey Hall as we had for front line centres in the first team.
“We also have some good young up-and-coming centres such as Olly Pratt and Joe Law coming through. So when you look at it from a business point of view, when there isn’t any money to come in and you have got to balance your squad out, then you’ve got to make these decisions with the best interests of the club at heart.
“I explained this to Corey and he fully understands it. It will be a good move for Corey individually and it’s a good move for the club to come up with solutions that we need.
“It’s also for the long-term health of the club. There are some good youngsters coming through the ranks that will go on to do what Corey is doing as well.
“They’re never easy decisions but that’s what you’ve got to do in sport. There’s no point moaning about things and saying we need this, we need that. You come up with solutions and we’ve now got a full-back that we’re happy with.
“Max is still a good two and a half months away and we move forward, Corey will move forward too and we wish him nothing but the best.
“Sometimes you have the leverage and other times you don’t and we’ve done what we felt we needed to do to turn things around in our current plight. We felt we could offset the loss with some of the youngsters coming through the ranks in terms of the depth at the centre position for the long-term sustainability of the club, so that’s how we came up with the solution.”
