Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

Lukic said:
You can be a good player and also be overrated. That's where Luai falls imo.

He wasn't a passenger at Penrith obviously but wasn't in their top 5 most important players of the dynasty either. To me, Cleary, Yeo, Martin, Fisher-Harris and Edwards have been their 5 most important players throughout the period. Penrith's dominance hasn't been characterised by Luai occasionally chiming in and setting up a try down the left side, it's been about the intensity they play at and consistently being 5% better at all the little things to grind other teams down. Line speed, quick play the balls, getting over the advantage line and then Cleary's kicking game. Luai doesn't really contribute to any of those things like the other guys do.

I think it's fair to say they're missing Luai now, but more so because his replacement isn't first grade standard rather than Luai being some invaluable player.

Luai is a good 5/8th. In a league where there's 34 starting halves, I'd say he's somewhere between 10th to 15th. There are a number of guys who are decisively better and then a bunch who you could argue either way, depending on team fit and role.

The reality is that with team success comes an inflated sense of value placed on an individual, and this is magnified when they're in the halves. So Luai was never going to be a guy who hit the market and would receive a contract that's reflective of his ability. It was always going to be a contract that reflected his accomplishments. That, tied in with the fact he's incredibly well known and has a large media/social-media profile means he's fallen into the "superstar" category and as a result, is overrated.

Even disregarding his performances this year, I wasn't a huge fan of the signing for a number of reasons.

It wasn't because I don't think Luai would improve our team and help revamp the culture, but because of the length of the deal and money associated with it. I would have much preferred giving him 2 years and 3 million instead of 5 years and 6 million. If he succeeds on the shorter deal, then we re-sign him and go from there. If he flops on the longer deal, we're stuck with him and realistically losing one of Galvin or Fainu, who both imo have the potential to be better players than Luai. Mega money deals like that should be reserved for the genuinely elite players. Instead, we offered a guy a huge deal who still had things to prove and his body of work hadn't suggested he was worth it.
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Weird how Penrith fans have vastly different opinions eh?

Do you really think a struggling club like us had the reigns of how long his contract should have been? It was an all or nothing play imo, he would not have accepted a 2 year deal with us

Look Luai is still definitely a work in progress, he is coming from the penthouse to a single story unit. He could be a flop or he could be the one to change our fortunes around .. the good thing about NRL is you’ve got time to prove yourself, and I fail to see how he hasn’t provided positive impact for us so far
 
Looks like, same old,
Same old.

Next week Newcastle,
And we are giving them a Head start,
We start with 12 men for almost 10 minutes, that should put Knights on there way to another win,
And us on our way further away from the 8.
 
hank37w said:
So we should not have been able to pick Solomona Faataape all last season or earlier this season because we had Feledy in the top 30? 🤣
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It’s a good point, I didn’t realise he started in round 2 last year.
It’s the rules but we must of had an exception last year due to injuries.
I just can’t understand why we had to upgrade hope to play just 1 game.?.
 
Tiger_claws said:
If its true that we are offering Galvin $5mil over 5 years and he says he still wants to go to market then Richo will go all in on Latu. He won’t let it get to November 1. I want us to keep Galvin but we can’t go down the path we have previously and Richo will know early on his intentions. I think Benji is doing a great job with our young halves so I don’t think Robbo, Ryles can improve him. Just my thoughts. Hopefully we keep both Galvin & Latu
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I'd offer him a deal asap so we know where the club stands now, why waste more time on someone who may want to leave, at least if they say they want to test the market we can go all in on Latu and Luai now for our future
 
JC99 said:
Why do Tigers have an obsession with moving everyone to lock?

Next it'll be Korisau to lock, Luai to lock, To'a to lock... a team full of locks!
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Well of you don’t have a kicking fans, there’s not much future in the halves.
In the glimpses of watching Latu playing 13 for our NRL team, he dogs into the line extremely well and shows plenty of promise.
 
Vicious said:
Well of you don’t have a kicking fans, there’s not much future in the halves.
In the glimpses of watching Latu playing 13 for our NRL team, he dogs into the line extremely well and shows plenty of promise.
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The 19 year old who's basically never got through 80 minutes doesn't have a perfect kicking game yet?

Give the kid some time. It's the hardest position to learn
 
rex2ce said:
Reckon Penrith would like to have that “ passenger “ in their team right now
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And I've said it before, I'm more than happy to give him back (don't care if he helps them or not), if we can get our 1.2 million back and start developing our two young halves without having to lose them to a passenger
 
rugbygoated said:
Not in attack. Defensively I can see him trying to his credit. It's like he's playing a cooper cronk role when in the 2018 grand final off the ball for 4 games straight. No point doing that if it's going to make us lose
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He has third most receipts for our club and he’s missed a game, he’s getting used to a new system as the marquee #7, give him time to kick on before you say he’s a “dud”
 
Lukic said:
You can be a good player and also be overrated. That's where Luai falls imo.

He wasn't a passenger at Penrith obviously but wasn't in their top 5 most important players of the dynasty either. To me, Cleary, Yeo, Martin, Fisher-Harris and Edwards have been their 5 most important players throughout the period. Penrith's dominance hasn't been characterised by Luai occasionally chiming in and setting up a try down the left side, it's been about the intensity they play at and consistently being 5% better at all the little things to grind other teams down. Line speed, quick play the balls, getting over the advantage line and then Cleary's kicking game. Luai doesn't really contribute to any of those things like the other guys do.

I think it's fair to say they're missing Luai now, but more so because his replacement isn't first grade standard rather than Luai being some invaluable player.

Luai is a good 5/8th. In a league where there's 34 starting halves, I'd say he's somewhere between 10th to 15th. There are a number of guys who are decisively better and then a bunch who you could argue either way, depending on team fit and role.

The reality is that with team success comes an inflated sense of value placed on an individual, and this is magnified when they're in the halves. So Luai was never going to be a guy who hit the market and would receive a contract that's reflective of his ability. It was always going to be a contract that reflected his accomplishments. That, tied in with the fact he's incredibly well known and has a large media/social-media profile means he's fallen into the "superstar" category and as a result, is overrated.

Even disregarding his performances this year, I wasn't a huge fan of the signing for a number of reasons.

It wasn't because I don't think Luai would improve our team and help revamp the culture, but because of the length of the deal and money associated with it. I would have much preferred giving him 2 years and 3 million instead of 5 years and 6 million. If he succeeds on the shorter deal, then we re-sign him and go from there. If he flops on the longer deal, we're stuck with him and realistically losing one of Galvin or Fainu, who both imo have the potential to be better players than Luai. Mega money deals like that should be reserved for the genuinely elite players. Instead, we offered a guy a huge deal who still had things to prove and his body of work hadn't suggested he was worth it.
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Finally someone saying it for how it is. He's overrated and inconsistent. His stats over seasons in a stacked team are pretty average. Seeing as he's a guy who doesn't like to take the line on I don't see that changing any time soon. Better to start developing galvin as the halfback now and play luai 5/8 then in 2 years time when luai is 30 and has the tigers virus he can take his player option and leave the club
 
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