Yeah I was critical of him at the time for the Grand Final/Coke episode and he was not performing at the Dogs at the time and it should be added that not all that many were around the time of Trent Barrett "looking a bit tired."
It was publicised at the time that we got him early to mid season for a bargain basement figure with the Dogs paying a fair chunk of freight to move him on.
At the time I thought that no doubt we were probably nearing the mid season point where we had to finalise our numbers for the top 30 to be compliant and as we didn't look like we were going to get some superstar to get to the 30 then why not a bargain basement signing.
Also at the time it was also made known that Brent Naden and Daine Laurie were really good mates and I thought there was the possibility that the two of them at the same club may lift them and bring about some sort of a positive change in their general attitude and performance.
I thought it was a pretty good deal at the time with probably more positives than negatives around it.
I believe we originally signed him from the Dogs for the remainder of 2022 and for the 2023 season, around 18months, not too bad if the Dogs were in fact paying a fair chunk of his contract for that period.
Where it all turned to crap was when only about 3 months later we extended his contract until the end of 2025, which I thought was a totally unjustified knee jerk reaction after playing only a handful of games and scoring 3 or 4 tries for us we thought he had turned full circle and was going to be a superstar with all all the other teams in the NRL set to swoop on November 1.
As usual it turned out to be the wrong move, after a reasonably good finish to the 2022 season he has failed to play regular first grade through a number of injuries and suspensions and when he has been on the field, poor discipline and brain snaps have let both himself and the team down more often than not.
As I said, a good recruit on the initial contract when he came over from Canterbury, a bad signing on the contract we gave him only 3 months later.