A 19 year old Haywood is nowhere near as good as Da Silva at 19.
Da Silva has gone back to NSW Cup and dominated, played a huge part in getting a team previously struggling to compete to become highly competitive and winning most of the games he’s played in.
I wouldn’t pay 600k for Talyn just yet, but he’s a must keep, even if it means we allow Api to go and play for the Perth Bears.
Previous reports advised Richo is heavily in favour of keeping Talyn, while Benji was wanting to keep Api even if it meant we lose Talyn.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, but I can’t see it doing us any good long term if we continue favouring older ageing players over our emerging stars.
Man you’re on fire lately … you’ve got some wild takes ! He’s every bit as good as TDS is/ was at that age . Especially between the ears , and defensively . My take is , TDS is more Damien Cook best case - Jacob liddle worst case .
Haywood is Farah —/ maybe Cameron Smith … I’d say Matt Ballin worst case .
I guess it just depends ont he type of hooker you want . If you want the crafty , extra half type . Or you want the poking your head through , attacking retreating defenders type .
For me the latter , rarely works in nrl . You get maybe 1-2 amazing runs a game at most , and you trade that off with poor goal line attack , and less structure though the games .
The former , you lack penetration in broken field ,and less explosive moments , but you trade that off for more assured structured footy , and clever ruck manipulation.
I’m not saying either can’t develop the either style just the the contrast .
For me I’ve always been about the Benny Elias/ Buderus /farah and the best ever Cameron smith type , rather than the Damien cook or even the Steve Walter’s / mick Ennis , Robson tough nut type .
Thats a long way to say I completely disagree with you.