Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

With Doueihi playing reasonably well in attack, it probably pushes Turuva to a wing for the time being. Not a bad thing because we are short there.

VERY SHORT
He's just on 6 foot. Not the tallest, but not the shortest either. Penrith seem to be doing alright with To'o and Turuva.

If you push Turuva to the centres next year, Doueihi has no place in the starting team. Perhaps Doueihi plays 14 in that scenario which would be handy, but you run without a backup hooker. I think Heath Mason becomes the 14 in time and Da Silva takes over from Api. The problem then is you need to find 2 wingers and there just aren't 2 wingers available right now to accommodate this.

As always, players are released in the off season, so that may change.
 
Why would we not be trying to get Blaize Talagi ?
Have watched him play 5/8,centre,wing & fullback this year excelling in all positions and he is coming off contract.
Seriously meets all the requirements we are looking for in our backline.
A tired Bradford Best outpaced him twice in the last 10 minutes last week to score tries from his errors. Don't think his pace is elite and seemed flustered in the decision making when the game was on the line.
 
If Tumeth and Matamua are paid out and let go that is a couple more highly prized juniors who haven’t kicked on. Is that a failure in identification or development, or both?

To me, Tumeth was never going to make it. He was a small framed back rower at a time when back rowers were getting bigger and more dynamic. I’d put that down to a failure of identification.

Matamua on the other hand was a highly prized young player who hasn’t kicked on. Development? Maybe it’s the player. I still think he has some potential as he’s only 20 I think and has transitioned from five eighth to lock. But so far I’d have to put this down to a development failure.

If they are released, I suppose we have to put these two down on the list of other highly touted juniors who never did anything at our club (Groat, Cini, Talau, Madden, etc). I worry the Kit and Luke will be added to this list soon. They are both too small for their respective positions in the modern game.
Agree, there has been a persistent misidentification of players to retain / extend as well as all too panicky lets offer them a top 30 spot to keep them. I also think that for years we have for some reason gone against the general type of player for specific roles eg small, not overly fast backline players for wing and centre, wrong body types for backrow, etc. We have finally got it right in the halves after a wasted decade but a so far behind in the backs now and falling behind in the forwards now. We always seem to be a work in progress.
 
Agree, there has been a persistent misidentification of players to retain / extend as well as all too panicky lets offer them a top 30 spot to keep them. I also think that for years we have for some reason gone against the general type of player for specific roles eg small, not overly fast backline players for wing and centre, wrong body types for backrow, etc. We have finally got it right in the halves after a wasted decade but a so far behind in the backs now and falling behind in the forwards now. We always seem to be a work in progress.

How the likes of Tumeth was offered a development contract over the likes of Ngutlik (Example only)
has me beat!!
I've not seen anything from Tumeth (At any level) that screams NRL to me, The amount of our development players that finish up and go back to Shield or RM Cup (At best) is frightening....
 
For everyone keen for Willison to come here, sounds like he will be hard to pry away from the Donkeys. Same manager as Stef.

Willison wants to leave his own legacy at the Broncos and forge a premiership-winning front-row partnership with representative prop Payne Haas.

 
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Interesting...might mean nothing...but..

Jack Hetherington-
2018- 54% win ratio
2019- 50% win ratio
2020- 100% win ratio
2020- 50% win ratio (warriors move)
2021- 12% win ratio
2022- 33% win ratio
2023- 58% win ratio
2024- 42% win ratio

Corey Horsburgh-
2019- 59% win ratio
2020- 50% win ratio
2021- 25% win ratio
2022- 55% win ratio
2023- 55% win ratio
2024- 50% win ratio

Neither of these guys played in the powerhouse sides (Hetherington was at Penrith to start his career- 3 years.

But both have winning career records. So their style of play seems to have success on the field.

Not saying it's a direct correlation, but these guys win.
 
It's even more funny that Gus said they need to promote juniors but all they do is buy players and offload them early. If I'm a junior there I'm not feeling to confident.

We need to swing our balance around some and buy more experienced players to help develop.
Yeah, theres an article written about how the leadership group at the club are letting the young players down someone might have posted it already I havnt seen it anywhere so if they have sorry but here's a link.
 
Totally agree here, i feel since we are going down the path of being a development club we will always be a bottom 8 team and in this day and age that is not good enough!!People can bag GUS all they want but he has turned the Bulldogs around in 3 years and they still on the up, It just don't make sense why we think this will change. Our so called young stars maybe are not as good as we think they are.Sure we jag a good signing every now and then, but that's it we need to keep doing this every year until we get out of this mess we are in.
The bulldogs have been very clever. They have not spent all their cap on top tier players but mid priced players who have taken them to mid table. Once those contracts are up you will see them throw the kitchen sink at a few key positions.

Meanwhile we go around trying to pay top dollar for key positions and our squad around them are reserve grade quality. When will they wake up
 
A tired Bradford Best outpaced him twice in the last 10 minutes last week to score tries from his errors. Don't think his pace is elite and seemed flustered in the decision making when the game was on the line.
Looking more at some of the try’s and line breaks he has made this year it’s way ahead of anyone in our backline,
And I would be more concerned in his pace if he couldn’t catch someone like Brent Naden, as Bradman Best is actually a fast centre in today’s game
Remembering both players would have been tired in those chases.
 
I can't believe people are actually suggesting Jack Hetherington. The guy doesn't even have any controlled aggression he's just a straight up idiot.
Bloke has a huge skillset, he is tough as nails, and has a big ticker.
Only a handful of guys who have pulled our jersey on have had all 3 of these.
Yes he is a loose cannon, but he has rugby league in his veins, born and raised from a family containing a number of top level players.
 
Bloke has a huge skillset, he is tough as nails, and has a big ticker.
Only a handful of guys who have pulled our jersey on have had all 3 of these.
Yes he is a loose cannon, but he has rugby league in his veins, born and raised from a family containing a number of top level players.
I can see the reasoning but our discipline is an issue already. I don't know how adding one of the most ill disciplined players in the comp would go towards fixing that.
 
The bulldogs have been very clever. They have not spent all their cap on top tier players but mid priced players who have taken them to mid table. Once those contracts are up you will see them throw the kitchen sink at a few key positions.

Meanwhile we go around trying to pay top dollar for key positions and our squad around them are reserve grade quality. When will they wake up
This!

We need hard nosed 7 outta 10 every game type actual first graders! lol at the dogs and dolphins packs, even Melbourne. Honest toilers.
 
This!

We need hard nosed 7 outta 10 every game type actual first graders! lol at the dogs and dolphins packs, even Melbourne. Honest toilers.
We’re in a period of separating the wheat from the chaff, you only have to read this forum to understand how complicated that is.
 
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Looking more at some of the try’s and line breaks he has made this year it’s way ahead of anyone in our backline,
And I would be more concerned in his pace if he couldn’t catch someone like Brent Naden, as Bradman Best is actually a fast centre in today’s game
Remembering both players would have been tired in those chases.
Best put 20 metres on him over 80 metres in both tries and he was never in the picture on the 2nd - so how much more tired would Tilagi have been than Best (who had probably ran further than Tilagi did on his first try than Tilagi did all night)??
 

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