Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

batboy said:
Selectively statting again?

Cartwright has been in the Parra system for 2.5 years - and been dross for most of that time… come on a little late last year and seems ok this year - in his 3rd year at the club!!
Paps has been here for 6 months…

Brooks has never had a second rower worth passing the ball outside matterson until this year…
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Not sure if IP has hit the mark yet. Defended well and puts in the effort, but I expected more from him in attack
 
clokan said:
Not sure if IP has hit the mark yet. Defended well and puts in the effort, but I expected more from him in attack
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Ice’s best attribute in attack while he was at Parra besides running off a better 7 was his right foot step. He would come off that right foot and explode though holes in the line and bust tackles. That’s a lot harder to do when playing on the left side. We are playing him on the wrong side. It’s hard to move Bateman to the left but maybe Bateman to 13 and Ice over to the right?
 
Buttface said:
Yep, barely score. We needed a player in the bin and the ref to go bonkers penalising them and even then we couldn’t score enough to win the game.
So you can sugarcoat it all you like but one game of 66 and 19 points in 5 mins doesn’t cut it.
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Gus said something the other day and I agree. The sin bin didn't cause us to score because they were a man down. It caused us to score because it took the raiders niggle out of the game and caused them to start playing footy, which we were better at. It should of happened way earlier as they were laying through our ruck, tackling our kickers, pushing our players in the back (Brooks an example, Johnny fired up a few times) both teams were offside all game but we seemed to be the only team being punished until the end. The 8-0 6 again count isn't because the refs were trying to get us the win... if anything they should of been penalties as there were a few in our half.

Before we scored 3 and a field goal in 10 minutes against them they had conceded 2 tries total in their last 2 sin bins. We almost doubled that in 1. We were the much better team.
 
bptiger 0 said:
bptiger 0 said:
Bula was already in the top squad , and we had heaps of cap space before joffa left , so no incoming and our squad is a class forward down FOR WHAT , not having a crack at u , but I can’t see why , do we want another wooden spoon to go with last years
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Bula was already in the top squad , and we had heaps of cap space before joffa left , so no incoming and our squad is a class forward down FOR WHAT , not having a crack at u , but I can’t see why , do we want another wooden spoon to go with last years
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Always happy to be corrected if I am wrong, though not so much when unjustly called out for being wrong without one first checking their facts.

Bula was not in the WT top 30, and could not have debuted against Manly, per the club itself back then, until he was announced as being elevated to the 30th and final spot in the top squad on 20th April, along with signing an extension through 2025.
 
Not sure about some of the opinions on here about Ice. He has not regressed since he switched clubs in my opinion. I watched a semi final he played in for Parra where he let in every try with poor lateral movement in defence. A few weeks ago I then saw him let in two tries in the one game due to poor defensive reads.

He was hidden better for Parra because they had a better balanced squad. He is a great player but he is not a complete player and he needs to improve as much as some of the lesser known players in the squad need to.
 
Tigersmurf said:
Not sure about some of the opinions on here about Ice. He has not regressed since he switched clubs in my opinion. I watched a semi final he played in for Parra where he let in every try with poor lateral movement in defence. A few weeks ago I then saw him let in two tries in the one game due to poor defensive reads.

He was hidden better for Parra because they had a better balanced squad. He is a great player but he is not a complete player and he needs to improve as much as some of the lesser known players in the squad need to.
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A well constructed and balanced viewpoint.
 
FrodoTBagin said:
Stop making sense.

For some reason people believe paying one of our least impactful forwards like he was in our top 3 was good business. Letting Offa go was the best thing we could do. Other players would be going "I am dominating week in week out, I'm in contention for rep footy. I should be getting paid more than this bloke who is barely holding his spot in the team."

In 2019 we signed Matterson, our best player at around 400k. He saw his output, he looked around and saw people making half the effort for twice the money and he wanted out. His replacement Luciano followed the same trajectory. It is why Aloiai left, it is why Marty left, it is why any time we finally get a breakout forward they immediately want to leave. hell it is probably why Ice wanted out of his contract. The best second rower in the league signed for the wooden spooners on 600k a year and then a few weeks later all the other second rowers like Kikau started getting thrown 800k at them as the market started to dry up.

Someone like Stefano would weigh himself against Offa's salary and expect at least somewhere around 700k considering he is in line for rep footy. Yes I am aware they still weigh their salary against other players in the league, however a player is more likely to stay at their team for a little under if they believe an offer is fair and in line with where they view their position in a team.

The core of our pack for the next few years is now on
8. Stefano 500k
9. Api 700k
10. Klemmer 400k this year, my guess is around 700k from next year on
11. Papali'i 600k
12. Bateman 700 - 800k

15. Twal 450k (I would expect him to stay for around the same money too)
16. Pole 250k

If Offa was here I wouldn't see Stefano taking less than 700k. However, he has recently come out talking about how he wants to captain this club in the future and he has also had a horrid experience at another club (Eels). We have also obviously developed him into being in SOO contention. Now I could see him extending for 2 years for around 650k each in good faith. In this case we could front end 75k from each year and just pay him 575k flat over the next 4 years, which would be really good business.

I have Pole on the bench here as I believe he should take Klemmer's starting prop spot in a couple years when he starts to drop off. If Pole extended for another 2 years I could see it being around 500k. Again if we do a bit of moving around on the payments we can take 100k off each of those 2 years and apply it to his current contract. Meaning 350k over the next 2 years and 400k the 2 years after. Again another really good bit of business.

Twal is honestly probably the first picked every week. Would pretty much make most top 17s in the league, every team needs an Alex Twal. Was in the Blues squad a few years ago but hasn't bounced back since his sternum injury. Next year is his final contracted year. I can see him staying for around the same money as he seems to love the club and it is honestly a pretty fair contract. Seems to be adding another dimension to his game now as well, has probably passed and offloaded more this year than his last 4 years. It is also said a forwards best few years are usually 26-29, he is now 26 with a ton of experience so expect further improvement.

Lock these 3 up for around the prices I said and that is the core of our pack for 3 years on really good money for us. Sheens and Benji seem to be really proud of the fact that they have already been able to front end some contracts already while still having a stack of cash in the bank for this year. I could honestly see the 2 that we front end the most being Klemmer and Bateman, If we haven't already. If we gave Klemmer an extra 400k this year to be paying him 800k and Bateman the same taking him to 1.2 for this year then we could take their contracts down to 600k each going forward. We could have a full representative starting pack without paying 1 of them more than 600k and the best hooker in the game on 700k.

This is 100% the reason we are looking to move on Blore as well. He is still on quite a solid contract as Panthers had him on stupid money before he even debuted and we have been paying him on potential since. Why would Twal and Pole extend on that kind of money when someone like Blore is being paid similar for 1/100th of the output (I do rate Blore, however Pole will play more games this year than Blore has in 3-4. Pole taking on the whole raiders pack is also much more impressive than Blore taking on Nathan Brown)

Our 8-17 honestly just needs a 13 and a 17 at this point. We can definitely fill these 2 from within as we already have quite a bit of experience and leadership(Matamua being the most likely to fill one of these spots). I do not believe we can bring 2 people up at the same time. If we bring up Da Silva as our 14, Matamua as our 13 and bring up another 17 from reserve grade then that will add quite a bit of inexperience to our pack. This won't be too bad if we can get an experienced half like hunt, however, if we can't then I can't see us capitalising on our advantage from when our starters are on.

It does not look like we can land an experienced half at the moment which means the best solutions for us atm is to target a starting centre and a starting creative 13. There are plenty of centres out there and I do not doubt that we can land someone decent. I am not sure if we are targeting Best or not, but if we aren't then I am sure it is because we have something else up our sleeve as I am sure we could benefit from him.

This leaves an experienced forward and well... Frizzell fits the bill. If it is longer than 2 years then absolutely not (We can't afford to become a retirement village again), however he is on 600k and I am sure we could once again get that subsidized by the Knights for next year. Put him on an edge and one of our backrowers at lock and we suddenly have a top 4 pack being paid on average like a 9-12th pack.

We already seem to have found the core backs that we will be building around. Brooks seems keen to take a heavily reduced contract (2 years 500k). Nof and brooks are the only players in our club that are eligible for the 200k cap allowance, which means if Brooks signs for cheap then we can throw it all at Nof taking his contract from 500k back down to around 300k a year on the cap.

All of this is just to say with the way we are doing business we could quite easily fit in at least 2 marquee backs. The best news is these numbers were also before the salary got approved to go up by another 2.5 million. I do not understand how we have gone from probably the worst managed cap in the league to one of the best in such a short space of time. Was it luck? Did Lee and Pascoe step back and stop getting involved? Alternatively have they accrued enough experience to be benefiting us in these areas? Did we bring someone in from the outside that made an immediate impact? (Sheens? Doubt it is Benji as the tide seemed to turn in late 2021 after the docuseries on fox. I know 2022 was horrid on field however we definitely seemed to clear up our act behind the scenes)
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Expect )Gus to go hard for Pole if he hits the market. Gus loves him
 
tigerap said:
Expect )Gus to go hard for Pole if he hits the market. Gus loves him
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I think we have 17 months until Pole hits the market so we do have a fair bit of breathing room. Definitely shouldn't be slow with our retention of him though.. The sooner the better.

Off contract end of 2024 we have Shawn Blore, Adam Doueihi, Sione Fainu, Asu Kepaoa, Rua Ngatikaura, Triston Reilly, Jake Simpkin, Starford To'a, Junior Tupou, Alex Twal. I suggest we focus on locking up Star, Tupou and Twal before Nov 1 and let time decide on the rest.
 
FrodoTBagin said:
I think we have 17 months until Pole hits the market so we do have a fair bit of breathing room. Definitely shouldn't be slow with our retention of him though.. The sooner the better.

Off contract end of 2024 we have Shawn Blore, Adam Doueihi, Sione Fainu, Asu Kepaoa, Rua Ngatikaura, Triston Reilly, Jake Simpkin, Starford To'a, Junior Tupou, Alex Twal. I suggest we focus on locking up Star, Tupou and Twal before Nov 1 and let time decide on the rest.
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Kepaoa has done enough in my view to retain a top 30 spot. Also best mates with Starford I think so can't hurt his retention.
 
Roar_Power said:
Kepaoa has done enough in my view to retain a top 30 spot. Also best mates with Starford I think so can't hurt his retention.
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So far I agree. I just do not think he is even in the top 5 retention priorities atm. Let's see if he keeps it up. Every time he has started to find form so far he gets a pretty big injury and it's back to square one with him. Another big injury this season and I think we should cut him loose.
 
BlackWhiteGold said:
I agree with Half but I would have Impact Prop (instead of Lock) and agree on Centre/Wing in 3rd.

I feel that Fonua Pole will transition to our predominant Impact Prop but we need another in our Top 30 (possibly could be an upgrade for Aitasi James).

If Talau is moving on as rumoured, we have T'oa, Naden and then Reilly & Feledy as our centre options. Yes Tupou could transition to centre with Nofa & Staines on the wing but Tupou atm has more value for us developing as a damaging winger.

IMO Feledy is going to be a gun explosive centre but I would rather him spend an entire season in Cup in '24 with a focus on him getting physically stronger, increasing leg drive & working on his speed with a Roger Fabri type. He would be found out defensively against men atm. Has a real Kotoni Staggs feel about him without being as fast over longer distances.
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Agree with feledy, we should send him and a few others to the stint trainer whisperer that turbo and the likes go too! He’s a strong stocky player but a bit short, unfortunately he’s a bit in the style of toa. It would be better to have a different style of centre, but it is what it is. I watched him yesterday playing with naden in the opposed team at training he’s obviously high on their list and not far off.
Unless a great fast centre comes off contract, I am happy with what we’ve got. All our money now needs to be on a controlling half, like Hunt. These level of players are at a different level, u can see at the drag queens he’s the only one that gives them impetus. Lock up brooks as a running half on a reduced contract. And get some Hunt!
 
Tim Sheens said:
Always happy to be corrected if I am wrong, though not so much when unjustly called out for being wrong without one first checking their facts.

Bula was not in the WT top 30, and could not have debuted against Manly, per the club itself back then, until he was announced as being elevated to the 30th and final spot in the top squad on 20th April, along with signing an extension through 2025.
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I was saying bula was playing in 1st grade weeks before joffa left the club , u seemed to suggest that bula only got there because joffa moved on which is not correct . I think we both got things mixed up in are statements 🤪
 
jrtiger said:
let's dissect. for mine, all of this points to Marshall and Sheens wanting every single player in the club to be paid to their appropriate salary.

Nofo – on huge dollars for a winger until 2025 and was only promoted back into the starting side after Staines' freak injury. attitude has not been an issue in recent weeks, but was for years previous. the fact he's playing well gives us the opportunity to find him a new home and to hopefully only pay a small portion.

Simpkin – signed midway thru 2021 on a Hartigan-esque backended deal which I'm sure is way above his market value. shown promise thru the year but with Da Silva's development fast tracked he is most certainly collateral. ideally Rua moves on too and you promote TDS to 14 and Cherrington on minimum wage as cover.

Laurie – been expected for months. both Bula and Staines have overtaken him and his attitude in Cup defensively has been atrocious. will need to look at a guy like Taaffe to replace him.

Blore – this one is disappointing. on the comeback trail, looked a class above in Cup and has always been consistent in grade. if anything, I'd say he's on big dollars and the club's decided it's time to part ways, given Kepaoa's rise and the pursuit of Frizell. one of the players I've always loved, but a release I can understand.

Talau – as far as everyone's aware he's signed with Manly. very disappointed considering we nursed him back to full health, but who knows? maybe it's not done.
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The 2being shopped around that I’m a bit disappointed with are TT and Blore.
Tommy has been above average in the last few games, Blore I think there’s more upside with him seems to have fallen out of favour with Sheens.
You still need to replace the players who leave, maybe with cheaper versions.
Hopefully they know what they are doing, history doesn’t give me confidence.
 
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