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                                             SIMON BALDWIN

ROUGHYEDS have completed the signing of the vastly-experienced former Leigh, Halifax, Sheffield, Salford and Rochdale Hornets forward Simon Baldwin.
 
Having ended last season at Whitehaven and having had two spells with hometown Leigh, Baldwin has made his seventh move in a long career to return nearer home and to sign a one-year deal for 2008 with go-ahead Oldham.
 
For most of that long career, which includes a total of 127 Super League appearances with Halifax, Sheffield and Salford, Baldwin played in the second-row, although in more recent times he has been operating at prop-forward --- the position he will occupy for Steve Deakin.
 
He and Deaks were together at Sheffield in 1999 when Baldwin played in 22 out of 30 Super League games for an Eagles side that finished above Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, Salford City Reds, Hull Sharks and Huddersfield Giants.
 
Deaks has signed Baldwin as a prop to spearhead his pack's go-forward with his other three established and specialist front-rowers, Richard Mervill, Jason Boults and Warren Stevens.

A Leigh lad, Baldwin turned pro for his hometown club and subsequently spent five seasons at Halifax -- the last three of them in Super League when he scored 16 tries in 56 games in the top flight in the 1996, 1997 and 1998 campaigns.
 
Sheffield followed in 1999, then it was back to Leigh for two or three seasons before he spent 2004 to 2006 at Salford where he clocked up another 49 Super League appearances to give him his total of 127.
 
Rochdale came next in 2007, but he ended last season up at Whitehaven as a result of the Hornets' much-publicised financial problems earlier this year.
 
Rougheyds chief executive Chris Hamilton said: "Simon has extensive experience over many years, both in Super League and in the upper echelons of NL1.
 
"Deaks knows him well -- they were together at Sheffield -- and we tried to get him last season when he left Rochdale for Whitehaven, but it didn't come off.
 
"He's got a lot of football in him, but in the main he will be playing prop. He will always be available for the second-row, obviously, but he has been signed as a prop and he will be playing as a prop -- a prop with football in him.
 
"He sees himself as a prop now, and so do we. That's what we've signed him as, and Simon knows that."
 
Baldwin worked with coach Dave Rotheram at Whitehaven at the back end of last season. Now at Workington, Rotheram wanted to take Baldwin to Derwent Park, while Barrow were also interested in him.
 
Oldham got their man, however, to maintain momentum in their efforts to build a squad that will be capable of taking the Roughyeds to automatic promotion in 2008.