Lazy comment by Braith. Brooks is a 10 year vet on a bigger wicket than Sullivan signed for 750k a season. He’d be expected to be the better player right now. Let’s see how it pans out before judging the kid.
Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion
- Thread starter MacDougall
- Start date
tony soprano
Well-known member
Blore is signed for 2024
29 of 30 spots for 2024.
I think we need to release at least 3 players between now & next season.
Release: Simpkin, Ngatikaura & Kepaoa would love to get rid of Nofoaluma but doubt anyone will take the freight.
Sign/Re-sign: Staines, Seyfarth, 2 x outside backs: Olam & Tracey would be nice. Keep James & Wakeham on NSW Cup (Train & Trial deals)
I think it's a pretty simple equation from here.
NRL: Bula, Staines, To'a, Olam, Tupou, Sullivan, Sezer, Utoiukamanu, Korosaui, Klemmer, Papalii, Bateman, Blore, Tracey, Pole, Twal, S Fainu
NSW Cup: Doueihi, Nofoaluma, Reilly, Feledy, Naden, L Fainu, Hawkins, Seyfarth, Da Silva, James, Mansfield, Tumeth, Matamua, Wakeham, Galvin, ?, ?
I think we need to release at least 3 players between now & next season.
Release: Simpkin, Ngatikaura & Kepaoa would love to get rid of Nofoaluma but doubt anyone will take the freight.
Sign/Re-sign: Staines, Seyfarth, 2 x outside backs: Olam & Tracey would be nice. Keep James & Wakeham on NSW Cup (Train & Trial deals)
I think it's a pretty simple equation from here.
NRL: Bula, Staines, To'a, Olam, Tupou, Sullivan, Sezer, Utoiukamanu, Korosaui, Klemmer, Papalii, Bateman, Blore, Tracey, Pole, Twal, S Fainu
NSW Cup: Doueihi, Nofoaluma, Reilly, Feledy, Naden, L Fainu, Hawkins, Seyfarth, Da Silva, James, Mansfield, Tumeth, Matamua, Wakeham, Galvin, ?, ?
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tony soprano
Well-known member
I get the sense that nothing would surprise me with recruitment at the moment. Few of the players never hear from fulton.
Fulton/pascoe pod was completed yesterday will be interesting to hear from him.
pawsandclaws1
Well-known member
Seyfarth is NRL, if not at WTs at another club. From the day of his debut, it was obvious he was going to be a very good forward. He just needed time to grow into his frame, mature and be coached by a coach prepared to allow him to play his natural game.
Roar_Power
Well-known member
You are taking the depth stuff too literally. People aren't saying average out the top 30 with $400k players to make up the salary cap. You responded to a previous post of mine regarding depth and what I meant personally, is that the players outside the top 17 need to be much stronger than what we have now. Sione Fainu, Rua, Reilly etc. These guys all need to be upgraded so that the top 30 is better rounded with reliable fill-ins.
pawsandclaws1
Well-known member
Can someone please post the SMH article - Why South Sydney have gone from title pretenders to dumpster fire.
tony soprano
Well-known member
Put the link in here
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Jedi_Tiger
Well-known member
he would be correct regarding Brooks over sezer
Sullivan will turn out to be a pretty good nrl 7
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CornerPost
Well-known member
When you look deeper into that list, we're in a bit of a bind. If we want to retain Blore, Staines and maybe even Seyfarth.. that puts us at 32 players.. who do we tap on the shoulder or payout ? Brandon Mansfield, Reilly, Rua, fanui( his two brothers just signed) Nofa on 500k .. why would he want to leave.. and I think we all agree we need at least one if not two outside backs.. this might be a bit harder to negotiate than first thought..
hank37w
Well-known member
Monday is too late when we have already lost on the weekend.
tony soprano
Well-known member
hank37w
Well-known member
Lots of people glossing over it.
earl
Well-known member
Good post. I think we have to retain Blore, Seyfrath, Twal and To'a. These guys are NRL players and everyone except Twal could improve. Twal is also a real solid forward as well.
We have a bunch of middle forwards and I'd hate to lose Twal and retain Klemmer. That would prove to me Klemmer was a dud signing.
We have to be careful with who we sign. It just seems we have a bunch of players in our squad that are not going to contribute to wins in first grade.
Rua, Mansfield, Tumeth, Sione Fainu, Lachlan Galvin, Feledy probably won't be up to it next season and then guys like Matamua, Doueihi, Reilly & Naden who are inconsistent or borderline first graders. I assume we have to keep Galvin, Matamua and Feledy as these guys have the most potential but it'd be great to let at least 3 of these guys go.
It's tough carrying so many players when we require at least one quick outside back like Staines and we really should sign Seyfarth
I can see why the club hasn't resigned Staines on a big contract and I'd love to keep him. We have Nofo on that big dollar contract and it's hard to add another winger on big dollars who isn't really an elite player.
I can also see why we had to let Joe O go.
CornerPost
Well-known member
Yeah 25/26 has alot of potential for squad growth.. we'll also know by then which of our 18-20 yr olds have turned into genuine first graders
Roar_Power
Well-known member
Why South Sydney have gone from title pretenders to a dumpster fire
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports WriterAugust 23, 2023 — 5.45am
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https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/live-scores?match=534846787There are so many fires burning at South Sydney right now, it’s difficult to know which one needs the garden hose first, but you can trace some of the fractures in the club back to August last year.
As a player, Sam Burgess was a force of nature who expected everyone to care and hurt and play through as much pain as he did. He was never about personal glory, just the glory-glory of South Sydney.
The Rabbitohs are reportedly dealing with internal issues as their season begins to unravel.
As an assistant coach with designs of one day holding the main job, he sets the same standards for the current squad even where they may not have the same approach as he did.
In summary, a difference in coaching styles is at the heart of the infighting and feuds troubling South Sydney.
Those fault lines are hard to track but the best I can ascertain, having spoken to a variety of sources, is Burgess and fellow assistant John Morris are on the outer with coach Jason Demetriou, who Burgess thinks gives preferential treatment to Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker, neither of whom get on particularly well right now with Burgess, who is also close to captain Cameron Murray and Damien Cook.
Then there are all the whispers and leaked stories; the back-biting and undermining. Just the general sort of stuff that happens in rugby league each day.
South Sydney assistant coach Sam Burgess.CREDIT:GETTY
This schoolyard imbroglio would be acceptable if it was a pub team or the Wests Tigers, but it’s South Sydney, one of the favourites at the start of the year to win the premiership.
Burgess was added to Demetriou’s staff last August at the urging of co-owner Russell Crowe after he spent the year coaching the Orara Valley Axemen in Group 2.
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When it was announced that Burgess was returning to Redfern, several people at Souths wondered if it was the right move. Not because Burgess is divisive or a bad influence. Mostly, because he was a big guy with a big personality coming into a team with a vastly different dynamic to what he’d been involved with as a player.
Demetriou was also relatively new to the role, having replaced Wayne Bennett at the end of 2021, so how was it going to work with a club legend like Burgess sitting in the wings?
Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell.CREDIT:GETTY
In the last six or seven weeks, those concerns have escalated as Souths’ season spirals out of control, culminating in Sunday’s dreadful 29-10 loss to Newcastle.
Burgess issued a firm “no mate” via text when contacted on Tuesday, but you can only imagine he’d have no truck with the sense of indifference with which Mitchell appears to be approaching matches.
Last Wednesday night, Mitchell attended the concert of US country music star Luke Combs and was videoed shotgunning a can of beer on stage before throwing it into the crowd.
No big deal, of course, but it wasn’t the greatest look from a player who has missed 10 weeks because of injury, in a side spluttering to the finish line, just days out before a must-win match against the Knights in Newcastle.
Burgess would be the last person to criticise a player for having a beer, regardless of whether it’s a sneaky schooner at the Coogee Pavilion or a shotgunned can in front of a sold-out stadium.
The difference, though, is someone at Souths would’ve taken Burgess to task about it the next day, or at least had a quiet word.
Tellingly, nobody in power at Souths has mentioned the Combs incident to Mitchell.
In other words, they didn’t want to upset him before such an important match. A reminder: this is Latrell Mitchell, not Beyonce nor Luke Combs. The other key difference is Burgess would have torn into the Knights’ pack like it was personal, running himself into the ground. If Souths didn’t win the game, at least Newcastle would know they’d been in a fight.
Mitchell did the opposite, looking barely interested at times before digging an elbow into the back of NSW teammate Tyson Frizell, for which he’s been suspended for one match.
Latrell Mitchell has spoken of his disappointment in himself after he was suspended for an elbow on Tyson Frizell.
It’s a silly play that will rub him out of a critical game late in the season. Just as his errant shot on Roosters centre Joseph Manu cost Mitchell a 2021 grand final appearance, another will similarly sideline him from the final-round match against the Roosters.
After the game, Demetriou was critical of Mitchell’s indiscretion, stunning all concerned because there has been no greater supporter of the fullback in the past year than the coach.
Does Mitchell receive preferential treatment? Is there one set of rules for him and another for the rest of the playing group?
Maybe – but so what?
There hasn’t been a team in history that hasn’t stroked the egos of its superstar players. Bennett understood better than anyone that you can’t win premierships without superstar players, whether it was Allan Langer and Kevin Walters at the Broncos, or Mitchell and Walker when he coached Souths.
Yet Bennett had the rare ability of making sure the rest of the group never felt like they were coming second and he often did this by playing “good cop, bad cop” with his assistant coaches so that the head coach could be the good guy.
Demetriou, an assistant to Bennett for five years, is still a relatively young coach and Burgess is even greener.
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Updated
NRL 2023
Rabbitohs waiting on Crowe decision as Burgess and Morris exit looms
But both would understand that Bennett treated superstars differently because they played like superstars. Surely, they could agree that Mitchell’s recent actions and his long spells out with injuries mean he is currently far removed from that constellation.His teammates seem to think this. In a recent video session, Mitchell snapped at Murray for not passing him the ball when he wanted it.
“When I call for it, give it to me,” Mitchell said, according to those in the room.
To which Murray replied: “Most of the time, you’re not there.”
pawsandclaws1
Well-known member
There was a dig at WTs in that original Souths' article. I can't read it in the update so perhaps someone has asked for it to be removed?
earl
Well-known member
I think we should just resign him now. We have one spot left and we should retain him.
pawsandclaws1
Well-known member
The Chad is correct in that we will have to move on a couple of players who are in demand by other clubs in order to improve. In Seyfarth's favour is he has good ball skills as well as a high work rate. Twal is a keeper.