Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

Adding the Fainu brothers and Sullivan is wise. Throw in kids coming through Bula, Pole, Tupou, TDS, Lauilli, Galvin, Feledy, Faagutu, Saukuru’s, Miller. Further down the track Tannous, Conti etc the club has as good junior depth as it has had in years.
We won’t be good for sometime but there looks to be a plan.

This is spot on. If we get Sezer then we have Api & Sezer as old heads in the spine with some young speed & flamboyance around them.

It’s getting alot clearer what our strategy is for the Benji coaching era, lets hope the kids can step up.
 
If we don’t score more than 2 tries today it will again prove we have more attacking deficiencies than just the halves, so let’s wait and see.
 
If we need a current example of how a team revolves around a player NOT wearing #7, look at Newcastle. Cogger would do just as good a job as Hastings in that team. The player is almost irrelevant. All the attack comes through Ponga.

Look at Melbourne. Munster runs that team from #6.

Illias is an 'organising half', but all the direction comes from Walker & Latrell. Illias has a job- don't mess it up.

Titans- Foran.

Bulldogs- Burton


There are nearly as many clubs run by the #6 as the #7. It's just how you set your systems up.

There is no reason Sullivan can't be a success at 7 while Fainu directs the team's attack.

There's a big difference between organising and the attack going through a player. Cooper Cronk had 1 functioning arm and the Roosters did all they could to get him to play that grand final back in 2018? Why ... because even though he barely touched the ball or did anything with it on the rare occasions he did, he directed them around the park.

The attack goes through Ponga because he's electric with the ball in hands and a great ball-player at second receiver. Hastings runs the side though. Your organiser structures the moves you up and down the field by structuring the set and from that platform the guys like Ponga are able to thrive. Hastings can not touch the ball once in a set and play a huge role, that is the nature of being an organising half.

I agree that jersey number isn't so relevant and that wearing "6" doesn't mean you can't organise / wearing "7" means you organise, but it ultimately comes down to the actual players and their playing style.

Fainu's great with the ball in hand and as an attacking threat, but it's to be seen if he can direct a team around the park from goal-line to goal-line. Two very different roles.
 
People acting like the only player that directs a team around the field wears a #7.

Watch the Manly junior games. Their #7 is irrelevant. Who is he? All the direction comes from #6. Fainu is the guy to move us around the football field. Sullivan will be the 'running half' I guess, if we need to label them. But in saying that, people are ONLY seeing the running. Hard to be the organiser in a Dragons team lead by Ben Hunt.
Api will steer the ship!
 
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If we need a current example of how a team revolves around a player NOT wearing #7, look at Newcastle. Cogger would do just as good a job as Hastings in that team. The player is almost irrelevant. All the attack comes through Ponga.

Look at Melbourne. Munster runs that team from #6.

Illias is an 'organising half', but all the direction comes from Walker & Latrell. Illias has a job- don't mess it up.

Titans- Foran.

Bulldogs- Burton


There are nearly as many clubs run by the #6 as the #7. It's just how you set your systems up.

There is no reason Sullivan can't be a success at 7 while Fainu directs the team's attack.
No you have it wrong.
All those players run the attack.
The team though is run through the organising half.
Without the effort of the guys who do the boring work implementing the coaching plans and strategy, the Munsters and Pongas are far less effective.
 
Where is all this Olam chat coming from?
One of the papers reporting that he is out of favour with Storm and that if an offer was made to Storm to release him, they would consider it.

As long as his falling out with Storm has nothing to do with ongoing injuries, I would be on board with getting him over to us. Immediately would become our best centre next year.
 
You wait for a player and keep making offers for the right type of player you need

Otherwise what’s the alternative ?

You sign a player for 4 years to play out of position and hope it works when it hasn’t worked for the last 12 years?

You can’t make a number 6 play controlling 7.

It like works for 1.5/ 5 games

Which is not enough to make the finals

And god no. Def not madden.

You bring in Sezer like they’re supposedly doing and then wait for another 7 to pop up.
And we have been doing that - offers to Munster, Moses, Pearce and Johnson all knocked back. All the top halves are now locked up. We can't just sit on our hands and hope that a topline 7 becomes disgruntled where he is and by some miracle wants to play with the WT. Just bringing in Sezer doesn't solve our halves problem as we would still be short of a 6 and backups.
 
Steve, I have noticed you get very fixed on "reported" figures. Always take a few hundred thousand off anything the Tele reports IMO.

I'm not sure about the Sullivan deal, but the Fainu boys are on about half what you believe and I imagine the 2.2m quote by Buzz about Jayden is inflated too.

Dragons would be throwing in for the first year for a start.
Same, a lot of the supporters on this forum seem overly fixated on Figures .. I do not get it at all., they also whinge that we cannot sign anyone then whinge and whine about the salary .. absolutely confuses the F out of me .. seems to be a lot of would be accountants that must just be jealous about what NRL players earn.. why worry when we have no control over it, it has no quantifiable effect on our enjoyment of the teams performance and as such it is not our problem .
 
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I think WT have done relatively well to secure two rising stars and a seasoned game manager for around the $1.2m mark. Might be less if St George is paying some of Sullivan's freight over the next year or two.

Need to now concentrate solely on positions 3-5.
 
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