Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

crazycat said:
Re Manase Fainu.

He will be coming here in some form. I do worry about Manase as he went to jail and he seemed rather unrepentant.

Benji did well to integrate Taylan May, but it's going to be a challenge with Manase.
If Manase doesn't want to play, I would be happy to offer him a job at the club. Something like "community liason".
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Destination club. Winning. Mic drop.
 
crazycat said:
I wonder...

The Storm are clearly hitting tough times. We have been talking of Fonua Pole going south..

Reckon Suli Pole could head north?
We have some budget with Luai's salary.

We would have to loose someone... Unsure if it's a good idea to have 3 families heavily involved in the club.
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Fanua Pole said to TDM in their Podcast that he was trying to convince his brother to come to the Tigers.
 
Vicious said:
Fonua Pole is and will be much more important than some of us realise.
Of all the props 23 or under this year across the NRL, I’d say he is number 1 and not many young props run the ball as strongly as what he does.
Supposedly very close with Bula and their partners/wives are sisters, so you would think if Bula stays, it’s a big chance Pole does too.
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I agree, he's a must keep. He has got the 'goods' and will probably keep on improving
 
crazycat said:
I wonder...

The Storm are clearly hitting tough times. We have been talking of Fonua Pole going south..

Reckon Suli Pole could head north?
We have some budget with Luai's salary.

We would have to loose someone... Unsure if it's a good idea to have 3 families heavily involved in the club.
Click to expand...
We currently have 3 sets of brothers, Fainus, Mays and Luaililis. Luke and kit are leaving so we can replace them with Suli Pole. Based on this year, 3 sets of brothers seems like the perfect mix😉
 
Would the Roosters agree to Leinu leaving mid season to join the Tigers ? Might have two of their ex forwards smashing them in them in the finals ..him and May …😉
 
Go_You_Good_Things said:
Agree with much of what you're saying here, H. And you say it without being a smart arse !
My constant return to the demise of Balmain is for all those who kick start their HBG argument whenever something that is even 1% negative to WT happens. Just to remind them why HBG are in charge.
Are HBG perfect ? No, of course not.
They have done things that make me cringe, but at the end of the day:
1. They are our current owners.
2. They were the only ones who dipped their hands deep into their pockets to pay out Balmain's defaults on debts, and I would imagine that since then they have had to shoulder the financial burden without any $$ input from Balmain's half of the JV.
While all this happened years ago, it is still important to the issues today.
I really don't want to go down the Magpies vs Balmain road . . . but, how do I put it . . . it seems the old Magpies people are complaining much less about HBG than the old Balmain people.
And in reality anyone that is too young to have magpie or tiger loyalty, that is complaining about HBG's antics . . . needs to understand how HBG came to being in charge.
HBG's debenture system is of their own doing. It seems out of touch with modern ways . . . but it's the method used by the club that saved WT from going down the shitter when Balmain defaulted.
Same goes for their boardroom shenanigans.
Of course, they can't get a free ride forever, and burn us to the ground just because they saved us financially all those years ago.
I must have a romantic set of values that believes we owe them a degree of respect for what they did to save our club years ago, and are still doing.
The answer lies somewhere in between.
But every time this business rears it's ugly head, all I can think about is the Monty Python skit about the Judean People's Front.
"Ok . . . apart from roads, sanitation, law and order, education, irrigation, medicine, wine, and of course the aqueduct . . . what have the bloody Romans ever done for us ?
Or is it the People's Front of Judea ?
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What you’ve said is not entirely correct.
Wests Ashfield didn’t pay Balmains debts, they took up the option to buy Balmains share of the JV - for the price of the debt.
Which they’re entitled to, and have had majority control since.

If Ashfield didn’t buy Balmains share, someone else may well have - but then control would be once again shared, which wasn’t popular from either side of the JV.

They didn’t help Balmain out
- they bought them out.
 
Thinking a a bit more about the Luai departure and its ramifications in terms of other contract extensions, I reckon it's all been part of a carefully constructed jigsaw puzzle. Conversations between Jarome and Benji started some time a go, with cards laid on the table and agreements reached. 'I'll support and protect you if you go to the Chiefs but, in return, I want you to promise me that you won't take other Tigers players with you'. Once this was nutted out, the timing of the announcement was decided and, once the projected financial situation was clear, a sequence of contract extensions was triggered, starting with the Mays and then Bula. I think it was all part of a master plan and reflects excellent salary cap management by Benji and the club. Well done Tigers!
 
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