Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Tiger_Yoshi]

Schuster on a minimum sign on 1st year,2yr club option there after

He only wants to play 6…..we have too many 6’s

 

[Telltails]

Our kicking game is poor and is a major issue. The good teams all have success on the back of their good kicking games.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

He only wants to play 6…..we have too many 6’s

 

[The Chad]

You almost had me until you mentioned Schuster. Could play him next to Stefano & it would be like mini me effort wise.

On a third of the contract value..

 

[Mccarry]

Galvin won’t be a 5/8 long term.

Here’s a big call… we won’t see him at 5/8 again this year.

Benji will see it this week. Our centres and second row will look so much better once they are not crowded.

 

[Tiger Stripes]

Bateman won’t come back to play reserve grade , I think he may not be back at all and that’s on him so we pay nothing we don’t need to pay him to leave , he left so zero cost to us

Fingers crossed you're on the money?

 

[BlackWhiteGold]

Maybe so, but honestly it can be fixed much quicker than many think by recruiting 4-5 players with the right body shapes and characteristics that we are lacking and I understand it’s easier said than done while needing to offload some players to make room for potential new recruits, but the Bulldogs have not had an issue moving on contracted players over the past couple of years, so why can’t we find a way like they can.
One player who does bot get much mention and is not a superstar by any means, but Bailey Simonsson is very quick, plays with high intercity which includes a very good kick chase and regularly contesting high balls. He has good height and size that we lack in our outside backs, does a decent job with yardage carries and at least threatens to make a line break when there is a staggered defence.
For the right price I think he’d be a good left wing option who can capably fill in as a centre when required.

I suspect he’ll miss a fair chunk of next season after ACL surgery

 

[Tiger Stripes]

He's come back from three knee reconstructions so he is not lacking in courage. Perhaps it is a mix of hesitancy with the knee and lack of application. Either way, he is a leader and our players look up to him so he needs to work hard to improve his defence.

Work on his defence?
He's failed every test for years on his defence. It wont change.
How long does it take people on here for the penny to sink in, it will never change?
"You can lead a horse to water............................................... !
We provide too much latitude and time on hoping it can be trained out of them.
Time to face facts and the hard decisions and cut them loose. [Same for some of our other hopefuls in waiting].
If other clubs think they can turn him around so be it, they can pay for the exercise. He becomes successful and makes a lot of money, good luck, go for it.

 

[Vicious]

I suspect he’ll miss a fair chunk of next season after ACL surgery

I didn’t realise he’d done his ACL.
That would cross him off the list, we already have enough of our own injury probed players.

 

[Tigersmurf]

We carry too many Reserve grade players in First Grade. Simple as that. We dont develop our juniors to a standard whereby they can walk into grade and progress to top notch First Graders, especially when it comes to forwards. I am happy to give examples:

Porter
Eisenhuth
Garner
Simpkins
Brown
Dias
Freebairn
Musgrove
Mikaele
Clark
Chee-Kam
Rochow
Collins
Edwards

We give our best top 30 spots to kids so we dont lose them and then try and compete with Reserve grade forwards. No other successful team would do this IMO. Why spend a lot of money on backs if you are constantly playing behind a depleted pack week after week.

A forward pack needs to be built around Da Silva, Fainu and Pole. That is the task, with an extra outside back. I have no answer to where these players come from, but we need to find some. Campbell-Gillard, Paulo, Leo Thompson, Hunt, Hetherington. I dont know how you get them under salary cap but we wont pull off consecutive wins without a pack that can at list intimidate half the teams in the comp.

 

[Vicious]

Work on his defence?
He's failed every test for years on his defence. It wont change.
How long does it take people on here for the penny to sink in, it will never change?
"You can lead a horse to water............................................... !
We provide too much latitude and time on hoping it can be trained out of them.
Time to face facts and the hard decisions and cut them loose. [Same for some of our other hopefuls in waiting].
If other clubs think they can turn him around so be it, they can pay for the exercise. He becomes successful and makes a lot of money, good luck, go for it.

If we had plenty of other outside backs who could regularly break tackles with ball in hand and also defend well, then we wouldn’t need to persist with Doueihi.
We have barely any other outside backs who regularly break tackles and you simply cannot have a team of outside backs who defend ok but cannot break a tackle and are useless in attack.

 

[The Chad]

There are plenty of teams that carry suspect defenders out wide. Problem at Wests Tigers is we carry suspect defenders inside those outside guys as well.

 

[Vicious]

We carry too many Reserve grade players in First Grade. Simple as that. We dont develop our juniors to a standard whereby they can walk into grade and progress to top notch First Graders, especially when it comes to forwards. I am happy to give examples:

Porter
Eisenhuth
Garner
Simpkins
Brown
Dias
Freebairn
Musgrove
Mikaele
Clark
Chee-Kam
Rochow
Collins
Edwards

We give our best top 30 spots to kids so we dont lose them and then try and compete with Reserve grade forwards. No other successful team would do this IMO. Why spend a lot of money on backs if you are constantly playing behind a depleted pack week after week.

A forward pack needs to be built around Da Silva, Fainu and Pole. That is the task, with an extra outside back. I have no answer to where these players come from, but we need to find some. Campbell-Gillard, Paulo, Leo Thompson, Hunt, Hetherington. I dont know how you get them under salary cap but we wont pull off consecutive wins without a pack that can at list intimidate half the teams in the comp.

I was initially failing to understand any reason why we would even contemplate signing so many young players who don’t look ready for NRL to our top 30.
But when giving it more thought, most of these players would be earning the bare minimum contract for a top 30 player which I think is around 120k ?
So you factor in about 5 or 6 of them on this contract and it should allow us to spend more and get better quality within the rest of our squad if done correctly.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

Cause no one wants to come here????

 

[Vicious]

Cause no one wants to come here????

Luai, Turuva ?
Players not wanting to come here is a myth, for someone trying to make their mark or someone wanting to prove the club that no longer wants them wrong, Wests Tigers is the land of opportunity.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

Luai cause he wanted to play under Benji and and Turuva is Api's cousin. Who else we signed??

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Luai, Turuva ?
Players not wanting to come here is a myth, for someone trying to make their mark or someone wanting to prove the club that no longer wants them wrong, Wests Tigers is the land of opportunity.

Players seem to have a different view once they get here. Ask Papali’i.

 

[Dennisspicer1]

Players seem to have a different view once they get here. Ask Papali’i.

NO, He was still playing for Parra when he got his cold feet.

Ask Api he plays his guts out every week for this Club, Why ? Maybe because he believes in Benji, And his belief in getting this Club into being one of the top sides again.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

Or maybe he found God through meditation

 

[Lauren]

I am so sad that when he came back, we won 1 game.

I would rather see us loose, keep Olam at Center and at least have someone teams don't target or target less....

Maybe we should shift AD to the wing. No one has claimed the wing spots, Staines and Naden have had their chances...

Yeah we all got sucked in. But that was a great win from the boys, so you wouldn't be alone in feeling that way.

I asked this in the game day thread last week, but I’m still curious - do the Wests Tigers even have a dedicated tackling or wrestling coach? I’ve noticed that other teams like the Roosters have a former wrestling champion, the Storm's tackling coach has a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and Penrith have a UFC fighter on their staff.
Considering the scope of Morris's role in handling defensive structures, it seems like a tackling/wrestling coach could be beneficial. So yeah does anyone actually know we have someone specifically for that, or is it all managed by Morris?

There's so many holes in the roster it's hard to even know what our best team is. 🤞we make some key signings in the off season.