BlackWhiteGold
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2021
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- 2,265
Great summation @Vicious5 or 6 additional quality recruits could change us from a team Wests Tigers fans hope will win on the weekend, into a team we are highly confident will win on most weekends.
Fullback looks to be covered with Bula and back up options Staines, Mason or Laulilli.
Staines is earning his right to be a lock on one wing and think we need to recruit for the other wing position, To’a can’t be discounted if he is going to be left out if the centres.
Maybe recruiting Turuva would create competition between he and To’a to see who plays centre and who plays wing.
Regardless I think we need to recruit a big bodied wing option, Skelton or Valemai both great options.
Olam locks down left centre when fit to play. Natural left enters in Faatape, Feledy and Makasini all provide great cover for Olam, but for Salary Cap reasons we can probably only afford to keep one or two of them.
Being a natural left centre I really don’t see Faatape as a long term right centre option, therefore recruiting someone such as Schiller or Lomax is the preferred option.
Halves obviously covered with Luai’s arrival.
Unless we see big improvement I think we need to offload Naden and most likely Sullivan.
If we did offload Sullivan we would require a very strong back up halve, maybe a player like Bailey Hayward from the Bulldogs or Adam Cook from the Raiders.
Hooker is covered, although you really do need 3 good quality hookers in the squad, so may need to replace Simpkin if he departs.
We are pretty strong for props providing we retain Stefano, however one extra dynamic ball runner would certainly help. Trey Mooney would be a great addition.
I really don’t see any long term value in Bateman, I’d be offloading him and signing with Angus Crichton or Jayden Su’a.
Even then we need at least one good quality back up edge forward and have an option of moving Papali’i to 13. For low cost options I really like the look of Billy Burns currently at the Sharks and Matt Doorey at the Eels.
Lastly I would consider Josh Schuster as a 13 option ONLY if we could get him for 400k or less. Reason being I really don’t think our young 13 hopefuls are capable of stepping up to NRL level as soon as we may have liked. A big watch on how Matamua goes this week as he’s now had the last season of grounding in NSW Cup, he could be much more ready for NRL now..
5 or 6 may be stretching it given the way Richo has been speaking in podcasts. I get the feel that we may recruit about 3 externals with our focus being developing our own.
The 3 externals being in positions where we do lack depth, so based on your summary and what we know, an outside back, back up edge forward and either a utility hooker or another solid middle.
I strongly doubt we'll offload Bateman given he is VC and part of our cultural evolution & defensive mindset at the club.
A quality outside back is probably the position we are actively seeking now for next season whilst I reckon Benji is keen to see if any of our young guys getting a run in Cup really put their hand up in the 2nd half of the season.