Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

king_sirro said:
I was fuming when we signed him. It was a horrible signing. Worse than Olam.
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Trying to work out who you would sign then?

Lomax? We go all out and spend 800/900k and drag him out of Parramatta's clutches to get a premadonna?

Should we have gone hard for Best and done a 900k, to see him stay at the knights?

Olam was a risk and Olam clearly isn't our problem in our backline.
It's the Toa/Faatape/Naden + turnstyle wingers that is a huge problem.

John Morris and Benji need to get our back line defending and fixing our defensive holes. While Bula can score, he doesn't have the fullback experience that Teddy or a Slater/Stewart would have in reading where the holes will appear. We need to train up and toughen up. Till we can hold off the attack and not have 3-4 tries scored against us each game, we will keep loosing.

Olam is an upgrade on any Center we have had play for us since Chris Lawrence's time.
 
crazycat said:
Trying to work out who you would sign then?

Lomax? We go all out and spend 800/900k and drag him out of Parramatta's clutches to get a premadonna?

Should we have gone hard for Best and done a 900k, to see him stay at the knights?

Olam was a risk and Olam clearly isn't our problem in our backline.
It's the Toa/Faatape/Naden + turnstyle wingers that is a huge problem.

John Morris and Benji need to get our back line defending and fixing our defensive holes. While Bula can score, he doesn't have the fullback experience that Teddy or a Slater/Stewart would have in reading where the holes will appear. We need to train up and toughen up. Till we can hold off the attack and not have 3-4 tries scored against us each game, we will keep loosing.

Olam is an upgrade on any Center we have had play for us since Chris Lawrence's time.
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I will say our defence has improved. 22 - 23 we had a record of the worse defence in NRL history.

Think it was 26 + points in around 20 straight games.

Think we have conceded that only once this season.
 
FrodoTBaggin said:
I will say our defence has improved. 22 - 23 we had a record of the worse defence in NRL history.

Think it was 26 + points in around 20 straight games.

Think we have conceded that only once this season.
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After round 10 last season we had conceded 206 points in 9 games (1 bye)

This year we have conceded 202 in the same period.

I'm not sure I'd want to hang my hat on that.

As the season drags on things tend to get harder and harder. We are still a long way off. Conceding 18 points a game is only useful if you can score 19.
 
FrodoTBaggin said:
This is exactly why I said that Seyfarth and Twal aren't the main worries right now. We have 3 locks with less than 10 games between them.

Edit: And we aren't even using any of them, we've used 2 front rowers and 2 props there this year
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Your acting as if Laulilii, Fa’agutu and Matamua are all 25-26 they are all under 22 and have plenty of time to show what they can do
 
crazycat said:
Me and just in the backline.

Staines -> defensive issues.
Doueihi -> defensive issues.

If we can't defend our line, then we SUCK!
Like a pressure cooker which gets opened every 5 minutes. We need to defend to build pressure so that we get opportunities.
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Olam isn't the worlds best defender either. He makes a cracking tackle then slows down.
 
Bones said:
After round 10 last season we had conceded 206 points in 9 games (1 bye)

This year we have conceded 202 in the same period.

I'm not sure I'd want to hang my hat on that.

As the season drags on things tend to get harder and harder. We are still a long way off. Conceding 18 points a game is only useful if you can score 19.
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Yes but keep in mind we had statistically the 2nd hardest start to the comp this year.

To start the comp last year we played Titans, Knights with KP injured in the first minute, Bulldogs, Storm, Broncos, Eels, Manly, Penrith in horrible conditions & Dragons. (1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16). So we played 3 bottom four sides, 3 top 4 sides, 2 mid table and Knights minus Ponga which is bottom / mid table tbh.

This year we have played 1, 2 ,4 , 6, 7, 9, 10, 11. That is 3 top 4 sides, 2 bottom 8 sides, and 3 teams 1 point off the 8.

We probably have a few more wins at the start of last year with this squad + Training staff.
 
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KCTiger2 said:
Your acting as if Laulilii, Fa’agutu and Matamua are all 25-26 they are all under 22 and have plenty of time to show what they can do
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That's what the exact problem is KC, they all are young in a roll that would ideally be filled by an 80 minute player. We can also only run with 1 of them at a time regardless, there aren't enough roster spots to carry 3 inexperienced players in the exact same position.
 
FrodoTBaggin said:
That's what the exact problem is KC, they all are young in a roll that would ideally be filled by an 80 minute player. We can also only run with 1 of them at a time regardless, there aren't enough roster spots to carry 3 inexperienced players in the exact same position.
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I don’t see why Fa’agutu can’t transition into a prop and as for this year Fa’agutu and Laulilii are only taking development spots and by next year will both be ready to play a bench role if needed
 
KCTiger2 said:
I don’t see why Fa’agutu can’t transition into a prop and as for this year Fa’agutu and Laulilii are only taking development spots and by next year will both be ready to play a bench role if needed
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So you're saying you think 2 of them will make the step up next year? Good thing I posted to only get rid of 1 of the 3, I also made it clear I think Matamua is the one the miss out so seems we are on the same page.
 
Vicious said:
I don’t know how you say that, he’s one of our only players that hits top speed quickly and runs the ball as hard as he can. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the physique to assist him in breaking too many tackles, but it’s certainly not through lack of trying.
I understand he has become prone to missing some crucial tackles and the occasional bad defensive read and I understand he for some reason seems to be lacking a bit of confidence when he’s in open space, but these issues are very different to what you are talking about.
I think Staines is a far better player than many give him credit for, but I do have a concern that our team balance would suffer with he and Turuva as our wingers as we would lack a bigger bodied winger in that scenario.
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Staines may have speed, but he certainly does not have a sidestep, give him the ball and he only knows one way, straight ahead, if someone is in front of him he will get tackled.
Useless.
 
FrodoTBaggin said:
Yes but keep in mind we had statistically the 2nd hardest start to the comp this year.

To start the comp last year we played Titans, Knights with KP injured in the first minute, Bulldogs, Storm, Broncos, Eels, Manly, Penrith in horrible conditions & Dragons. (1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16). So we played 3 bottom four sides, 3 top 4 sides, 2 mid table and Knights minus Ponga which is bottom / mid table tbh.

This year we have played 1, 2 ,4 , 6, 7, 9, 10, 11. That is 3 top 4 sides, 2 bottom 8 sides, and 3 teams 1 point off the 8.

We probably have a few more wins at the start of last year with this squad + Training staff.
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We've had a number of winnable games this season and we've failed to win them.

I like your optimism, I'm just not sure I share it. My biggest concern is I think our Team in better on paper, but not on the bit of paper the ladder is on. Why is that?
 
Tigerbenb said:
Ok here we go….

Surely, every week in training you could see that the players we have, and the team picked each week is not up to it?

Even the bench - name me one player that would cause any nrl coach bother in game prep, or strike any fear into the opposition ? Nadda, no one.

Our attack is poor, there is no cohesion , and my mind is boggled, as our head coach was an attacking apex warrior in his prime time ?

Staines, toa, naden - honestly they are poor.

Bula - I think such a long deal on massive $$$, we got hyped in a shithouse season and signed on hope.

We play with no vigour , intent or focus.

Galvin I hope kicks on , ball playing lock after a year or two in the gym and growing ?

Look in qld - don’t see a lot of nsw cup . Can anyone comment on Isiah Iongi? Penrith fullback , Preston Riki , young Skelton at the dogs seems to get a lot of wraps?

We haven had a decent centre in over 10 years. Yet it is constantly our weakness.

Heath Mason going ok ?

Latu isn’t a 9… the kid is the 6.

Bateman - sheenius signing, he’s not the player he was , and fair enough too I guess.
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I can't understand the Bula critics he is playmaking and supporting more, his defence and positional play is solid, I'm genuinely curious what you don't like about him anyway sorry to go on a rant lol I just think give it time he will be a star. The Fiji connection will work.
 
Leck said:
Cocaine is a performance enhancing drug, just ask Maradona... bugger we can't because he's dead.

I worked with his ex-wife Cath Mahoney, who wrote a book about that period in his and her life. It's an interesting read and offers a different perspective.
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So she wrote a book about Joey to make a quid. Pass.
 
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