Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Tucker]

Interesting…I’ve never had an issue with Kayo since I’ve had it …

I would never watch those clowns on Nine

Really?
Mine freezes a lot. Annoying. Pretty poor service for the cost of it.

 

[hank37w]

Anyone in the team can get injured … Olam missed time last year as well I believe …

I don’t see the Storm agreeing to what you propose in any event .. they have everything to lose and nothing much to gain … if his form declines then he is right back there in 2025 with two years to go….at least if his form improves in 2024 then they will benefit from this instead of paying for him to play elsewhere … I see it very unlikely the Tigers keep him in 2025 anyway…

You are 100% correct with most of what you say and as I said I didn't expect a deal like that to come off, but it is the kind of thing we should be looking at more often rather than coming off second best like we often do in deals like extending Doueihi for a year before a game has even been played and coming off a second ACL to boot.

 

[jrtiger]

Yeah me too. Though as I pointed out with the Capewell deal there was a fair bit of talk in the early part of the first week then went quiet for at least seven days. With Luai around the time that we presented him with an offical offer, there was talk about releasing him now then that got shut down and things went quiet for a week until Penrith started talking about renegotiating with him once he returned to training. Alongside that you have his teammates and the group CEO giving him their blessing to leave. Surely something kicked that off?!?

definitely hard to get a read. from a WT point of view there’s been nothing except that there was a meeting about 12 days ago. seems as if we’ve kept things in-house for the most part.

 

[Tom Shines]

You are 100% correct with most of what you say and as I said I didn't expect a deal like that to come off, but it is the kind of thing we should be looking at more often rather than coming off second best like we often do in deals like extending Doueihi for a year before a game has even been played and coming off a second ACL to boot.

i hear what you saying ,,,, obviously any deal where the other party takes on most of the risk is going to be beneficial most of the time …

Personally,,, i would rather have one more year of Blore then one year of age 30 Olam …( I certainly don’t won’t Olam for 3 more years… even at $300k per year )

If Blore can finally have an injury free year… Im interested to see if he improves …he might feel some sense of “putting in“ next year… given his injury history

 

[Kaito]

No you’re not…
I’m of the opinion - paying 600k for Olam and 500k for Howarth is the Storms real
Dilemma here…
Howarth has been playing second row in ressies, but he’s listed and bought as a centre - I think he’ll start his NRL career there (at least) for the storm.

Trent Loiero to prop/bench, Blore to 2nd row,
Howarth to centre probably. And Olam to
whoever will pay the freight. Melbourne
need to come to the party if they want to
offload him. Realistically we could give
them Blore now & have Fainu 2nd row/prop
cover & take Olam for 300k but I digress

 

[Tom Shines]

Really?
Mine freezes a lot. Annoying. Pretty poor service for the cost of it.

I share mine with a relative .. think it’s $30 a month for both of us…pretty good deal I think compared to Fox which I had for years before …

Never had any issues you mention… assume you don’t have issues with the Internet provider ?

 

[Coastie_Tiger]

I've cooled my jets in regards to Olam, i hope we don't do the deal in any form he's got Bj vibes going on.

 

[BrissieTiger67]

Never ever watch nine sport with the volume on. Sometimes out of desperation you have no choice, but I always turn the volume off

I am a self confessed vossy fan so I like when he gets a run, he falls out of favour with nine periodically , not part of the boys club. it also helped he voiced alot of the Playstation Rugby League games 😉

 

[Kaito]

I've cooled my jets in regards to Olam, i hope we don't do the deal in any form he's got Bj vibes going on.

There's something weird about it isn't there -
something doesn't seem right. It's either
A) he has mental health issues B) he's got
the club offside (behavioural issues) or C) he's nursing an ongoing injury. Can't be
anything else really, besides maybe $$$
but it doesn't sit right with me. Who knows

 

[hank37w]

Really?
Mine freezes a lot. Annoying. Pretty poor service for the cost of it.

Have to agree with you on the Kayo issue.

It is glitchy beyond belief and before anyone says anything I am with TPG on a 100Mps plan and it actually tests at over 100Mps on Ookla whenever I run a test, most commonly at around 107/108. I have a node at my front fence in an acreage area, so I guess it is not over subscribed as there are at least 3 nodes in my area that I know of.

The only gripe I would have with the TPG plan is that some time ago they reduced the theoretical upload from 40Mps to 20Mps, which doesn't really affect me and I could not justify paying extra to retain the 40Mps upload limit.

I have cancelled Kayo now and will rejoin when the NRL starts up again because NRL is really the only reason I use Kayo.

A couple of years ago Telstra had members deals for 12months for $15 a month and I decided to give it a go and actually got it for a year for $5 a month because I have 2 mobile plans with them.

The following 12 months it went up to $15 a month for 2 streams which was tolerable for the use that I get out of it.

Now that it is $30 for 2 streams and I think $35 for 3 streams it is way over priced for the use I get out of it and the quality of the stream is crap a lot of the time.

Quite often, catching up with episodes of shows you find that sometimes the ends of shows are cut off, sometimes they just skip ahead part way through a show and generally it can be pretty annoying when you are paying full price.

 

[supercoach]

Something that I don’t think that anyone has mentioned is that Olam is managed by Sam Ayoub.

Can mean a few things for us … no way will Olam accept any less than current contract or duration unless Storm come to the party.

Nofa managed by Ayoub too so possibly Ayoub is working overtime to get Nofa a deal elsewhere to enable us to take Olam absorbing more of his current salary than we probably would.

As much as a salary cap thing, I think it’s sn optics thing for us. As long as another club pays a satisfactory amount for Nofa (I’m guessing $250k pa) & Storm contribute a satisfactory amount for Olam ($200k pa), we will do it.

A question is, which club does Ayoub have a big ‘in’ with to persuade to take Nofa?

Big Sam was very tight with Sheens and Ronald MacDonald so maybe things have turned sour with our club

 

[cochise]

Have to agree with you on the Kayo issue.

It is glitchy beyond belief and before anyone says anything I am with TPG on a 100Mps plan and it actually tests at over 100Mps on Ookla whenever I run a test, most commonly at around 107/108. I have a node at my front fence in an acreage area, so I guess it is not over subscribed as there are at least 3 nodes in my area that I know of.

The only gripe I would have with the TPG plan is that some time ago they reduced the theoretical upload from 40Mps to 20Mps, which doesn't really affect me and I could not justify paying extra to retain the 40Mps upload limit.

I have cancelled Kayo now and will rejoin when the NRL starts up again because NRL is really the only reason I use Kayo.

A couple of years ago Telstra had members deals for 12months for $15 a month and I decided to give it a go and actually got it for a year for $5 a month because I have 2 mobile plans with them.

The following 12 months it went up to $15 a month for 2 streams which was tolerable for the use that I get out of it.

Now that it is $30 for 2 streams and I think $35 for 3 streams it is way over priced for the use I get out of it and the quality of the stream is crap a lot of the time.

Quite often, catching up with episodes of shows you find that sometimes the ends of shows are cut off, sometimes they just skip ahead part way through a show and generally it can be pretty annoying when you are paying full price.

It is a strange one, I share mine with 2 mates and none of us really have any problems using it at all. I think I had a drop out during a game once and that was due to my internet dropping out.

 

[supercoach]

Kayo like any other steaming service has its moments but is good value

 

[Telltails]

Not the first time a Sam Ayoub long serving player has been reportedly told they would be starting in reserves while still under contract at the club as I recall.

 

[phil1986]

He lets in tries for fun, slug.

Just My opinion.

But I do feel that cowboys have the right idea. Luciano is talented, but is only getting less mobile.

A move to prop as they did a fair few times, is where he will end up. Less ground to cover laterally, and won’t be found out In the same way like you can be 3rd in.

That cowboys deal was 100% overs, and although I wanted to keep him. I am glad we didnt pay overs.

 

[phil1986]

Interesting…I’ve never had an issue with Kayo since I’ve had it …

I would never watch those clowns on Nine

I had issues previously.

It took me some time to find out, but it was comparability issues with a expensive tv.

Not the app in general.

Also if you do use via a computer, you can have Picture in Picture, for up to 4 channels at the same time, which is also useful on a projector etc.

Full transparency, I moves across to fox for the full HD experience. It’s just shit that they don’t do every NRL game as they have to use 9s footage for their allotted games.

 

[phil1986]

I've cooled my jets in regards to Olam, i hope we don't do the deal in any form he's got Bj vibes going on.

Yep, don’t get me wrong. He is a quality player at his best.

Buts for those dollars. Shouldn’t we be worried that at stages during the year, he wasn’t picked for his own team.

He’s not a fringe first grader at 600k.

For less money, no worries take the punt. But for those dollars, risk needs to be non existent.

 

[BlackWhiteGold]

Then you are effectively paying $650,000 for a player of the same age, in similar form and for an extra year, 3 years as opposed to 2 years.

Don't see any advantage in this scenario, better keeping Noffa and save $150,000 a year and have him off the books a year sooner than Olam would be.

Ideal world we get someone to pay $250k pa for Nofa (can't see this being any higher) & Storm agree to pay $350 pa for Olam. Then you could look at it that Olam & Nofa is effectively a swap (we pay $500k pa, except an extra year) with us placing faith in Benji, Morris & co to get Olam back to close to '22 form and Olam's experience & leadership far outweighs anything Nofa could contribute.

 

[crazycat]

Ideal world we get someone to pay $250k pa for Nofa (can't see this being any higher) & Storm agree to pay $350 pa for Olam. Then you could look at it that Olam & Nofa is effectively a swap (we pay $500k pa, except an extra year) with us placing faith in Benji, Morris & co to get Olam back to close to '22 form and Olam's experience & leadership far outweighs anything Nofa could contribute.

Look, Sadly Nofa is acting awful again. His attitude will bring the team down.
Yes I was fully ready to allow Nofa to sail into a 500k do nothing sunset. Mainly because I don't think we would get 200k for him and it would be 200k for one year.

Now (and maybe for a long time) Nofa is toxic and must go. Sucky way to end a career.

As for Olam, I only see him as a total upgrade on anyone in our backline. 2023 was his worst year, give him some tackle confidence and bringing him in lets our stronger players to go to the wing.
i.e.

2023 was Nofa, Toa, Staines/Naden/AJ/whoever we can find, Tupou

2024: Staines, Naden, Toa, Tupou
With Olam:
Naden, Olam, Toa, Staines.
(with the possibility of Tupou spending a bit of time in Reggies to get his defense right).

Till we get our backline sorted, we will not progress past 14th. We need to be able to count on our backline defending and scoring more tries then they let in. You put Nofa/Tupou on the wing and it's a field day.

100% we should sign Olam and forget chasing Luai. Don't get me wrong Luai is the better player, class act, top shelf. However we signed Sullivan/Fainu/Sezer and were full in the halves.

Hire the player the team needs, not the extra 5/8 we don't need (i.e. Ivan Cleary style).

 

[PrattenParkMagpie]

Ideal world we get someone to pay $250k pa for Nofa (can't see this being any higher) & Storm agree to pay $350 pa for Olam. Then you could look at it that Olam & Nofa is effectively a swap (we pay $500k pa, except an extra year) with us placing faith in Benji, Morris & co to get Olam back to close to '22 form and Olam's experience & leadership far outweighs anything Nofa could contribute.

Those figures are much better, but as it stands from reports Storm don't appear to want to pay any freight so I can't see them paying $350k, I would rather pay Nof $1m over the next 2 years and let the Storm pay Olam his $1.8m for the next 3 years.

You pay an rising young star a bit extra over a few years and hope it pays off and he gets to that consistent NRL level rather than pay way overs (on current form) for a 30yo who's form is now questionable and may never regain it.