Guardian sports reporter Matt Turner takes a look at Wire's latest capture

FIRST and foremost, I am excited to see what Blake Austin can do in a Warrington shirt.

Just as rumours continued to fly around about this move, I noticed Canberra Raiders’ NRL clash with Canterbury Bulldogs was on Sky Sports and that Austin was on the bench.

I knew he had been criticised for his recent performances, but I was keen to witness him in action live.

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He touched the ball just eight times after coming off the bench, but they included a try, three line breaks and 98 running metres as the Raiders produced a remarkable comeback to score three tries in the last five minutes to pinch victory.

Of course, the likelihood is that he will not make that impact every week at Warrington. But it was a demonstration of just what he can do.

He certainly does not have the build of your average half-back. At over six feet tall and weighing nearly 15 stone, he is the polar opposite of Tyrone Roberts – the man he is replacing – in that respect.

Those physical attributes certainly help him close to the line. You don’t find many half-backs these days who can simply bulldoze their way over the line if all else fails.

He is clearly highly thought of by observers of the Australian game and was voted Dally M five-eighth of the year in 2015 – an award previously won by the likes of Brad Fittler, Darren Lockyer and Johnathan Thurston.

While all of this sounds jolly exciting, there is one question Wire fans will want the answer to very early: Is he going to be here long-term?

When Roberts’ departure was announced – taking up an option to return to Australia 12 months into a lucrative three-year deal – it was all too familiar.

There were fans who were advocates of looking closer to home for Roberts’ replacement, rather than risk being back at square one again in a year’s time.

However, The Wire are a club with designs on being the best this country has to offer.

To do that, you need top-quality players and the vast majority of them are Australian-based.

Is bringing Austin over a gamble? Of course it is, but Steve Price and the rest of the decision-makers at The Halliwell Jones Stadium clearly think it is one worth taking.

Due to some precedence with overseas recruits in Super League, plenty of fans will of course be sceptical that Austin is taking a punt on a year abroad on big money in the hope of resurrecting his NRL career.

At 27 years of age, he is in what you can typically expect to be a player’s prime years. We can only hope he spends the remainder of them with The Wire.