Canterbury Cup team announcement Round 5

Bradley will play first grade sooner rather than later I think. He's got "boom rookie" written all over him. Aupouri has been a nice surprise. What's his story?
 
Long time lurker on this site, just signed on to reply to this. Can’t comment on Aupouri, but Kane Bradley is my cousins son. Haven’t been in close contact with the family for a while, so I can’t enlighten you on his recent path to the Wests Tigers, but as a kid he was always the gun player on the team. He would play the halfback role, looking to get others involved most of the time, until he felt the team needed a spark and he would bust them open with an individual run. Obviously with his size now and his progression to the back row (and now wing), I’m not sure how his skills as a youngster have been preserved, but if he does get a crack at first grade he potentially has some skill/variety as a player if the situation arises. Hopefully not too one dimensional. Haven’t seen him play for a while, so not the best judge, but just wanted to give you an idea of his early days as a youngster in league.

Not sure how he managed to get so big actually, my cousin is by no means a tall woman, and her husband is average height too!
 
Momirovski is nothing more than a stop gap/solid centre. He has nothing about him that would scare an opposition. The best you hope from someone like him is that he makes no mistakes and defends well (and he is probably pretty good at that). But he will never win you a game by making a break etc. Hence, why I am more excited about prospects like Bradley and Smith.

The hype of Momo was over the top. He did okay in a semi (again he did nothing wrong) and literally grounded a ball that was handed to him. If he plays first grade, its a stop gap solution.
 
Found it interesting that Momirovski was given the goal kicking duties over Gamble who is the established kicker in Canterbury Cup..hints too me Momirovski is closer to First Grade then Gamble is..

Good win by Wests the Riff generally tough to beat
 
The other advantage that Monorovski has over most of our current first grade backline is that he is a more than competent goalkicker with a very solid dependable temperament.
 
Watching live , Talau and Bradley held there own, both didn’t look out of place, quite promising going forward, I’m a big critic of Seyfarth, but he went ok as well actually surprised me a bit because he’s been poor in 20’s, the fullback in 20’s is a very exciting prospect, he looks a much better player with the ball than Dylan smith, , the centre Cini was very hard to handle as well, they were the 2 best for us yesterday in Flegg.
 
A fairly comfortable win in the end. With so many NRL calibre players dropping down we should have won and did, although the panthers did have a number of nrl players too.

We only attacked down the left in the first half so Nof and Talau didn't see any ball. Both got more ball in the 2nd half, and Talau was occasionally guilty of trying to impress too much given limited chances with the ball. Nof ran well in the second half but and a nice offload setup a try to smith who was supporting Gamble (who supported Nof). Bradley was very good, got involved a lot and ran hard.

Momirovski was quite good. A stable and reliable player, with good footwork and an intelligent read on the game. He's not a Latrell Mitchell type player who could blow the game wide open, but he's a reliable and solid player, suited for teams looking to grind out matches. Which is what we're likely to be doing this year. I think we beat the Panthers if he was playing left centre instead of Jennings.

Gamble was good again. Having to carry the load of the attack seeing Aupouri isn't interested in playmaking. He set up tries and kicked well, several try assists, defended well. Would be a more dynamic option at centre than Jennings or Momirovski but can't see him getting a shot just yet. Gamble would be quicker than Fonua, marsters, nof and jennings and the ability to kick close to the line would be a handy option.

Aupouri did score 2 tries but was pretty invisible otherwise. In the right place at the right time for one try, and his second he had a 4 on 1 outwide but decided to step inside and go himself. He did just get there reaching out, but it was a guaranteed try if he passed it. I'm not sure what position he's suited to. Maybe a centre. He just wants to run the ball.

ET worked hard but had minimal impact, same as usual. McIntyre was solid, McQueen and Rochow solid but anonymous. Ratu didn't see many minutes.

Smith was solid at the back. Defused kicks and supported well through the middle and got a try under the posts as his reward.
 
Smith is a talent as are Bradley, Talau, Cini and Madden, Dillon also has the potential if he works hard enough. Seyfarth hit hard in defence yesterday and it seems the higher the standard the better he performs. With his size, mobility and work rate, I'm sure Maguire will work him hard. McIntyre also looks a good prospect.
 
@Balmain_Boy said:
Momirovski was quite good. A stable and reliable player, with good footwork and an intelligent read on the game. He’s not a Latrell Mitchell type player who could blow the game wide open, but he’s a reliable and solid player, suited for teams looking to grind out matches. Which is what we’re likely to be doing this year. I think we beat the Panthers if he was playing left centre instead of Jennings.
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I've been soundly unimpressed with Robert Jennings, though defensively he's not a total liability, he seems to lack real footy nous. I have not observed him running good lines nor have his hands been good. Yes Jack Bird dropped a worse sitter than Jennings last week, but neither of those were acceptable.

And frankly I felt we were a better side when Jennings went off concussed and Chee Kam moved to centres.

Jennings would also be an adequate winger but IMO no better than Thompson, Fonua or Nofo. Jennings is a big unit but I just haven't been impressed with his attack - lacking impact for his size, not much wind-up and not much leg drive. Fonua, for example, has obviously faults, but at least he really gets working in every carry.

Maybe I'm being overly critical, but I expect bigger bodies to be more effective in the carry, whereas Corey Thompson is arguably a better early-set runner than Jennings.

I think there's a strong argument to promoting Mommers, even if just for that safe and consistent gameplay, plus goal-kicking. Also, he's barely played 3 NRL games his career - who can truly say what he's capable of producing at that level with any consistency.

The most important thing first and foremost is to ensure that Mommers doesn't let tries in and doesn't cause defensive issues on his edge. The attack can develop off the back of that, even if he's not a world-beater.

KB wrote earlier that there's nothing about Mommers that would scare opposition, but that's true of perhaps a majority of centres in the game right now - it's not where the money goes and not generally where the strike exists for most clubs. There's 1 Latrell Mitchell, then the rest. Mitchell, Manu, Chambers, Ramien, BJ Leilua on second tier, then perhaps Aitken, Dugan, Lafai, Peachey, Staggs on reasonable 3rd tier.

The rest - serviceable and non-outstanding footballers. E.g. running around at other clubs last weekend: Hopoate, Holland, Xerri (yet to be tested), J Mo, Turner, Gagai, Hymel Hunt, Takarangi, M Jennings, Brian Kelly, Moses Suli, Sandor Earl, Mitch Aubusson, Kata, Hiku, Kahu, Tuala, Brad Parker, Croker etc. Jack Bird not performing over a long period.
 
Sandor earl's performance was poor, i remeber watching him in the trial and he was the best player on the field
 
Aitken is right up there in terms of being one of the better centres in the NRL. His passing needs work but he can penetrate a defence and is one of those players you want in your team in a tough game.

I envisage Momorovski being in a tough battle against Smith, Talau and Cini for future NRL selection. The latter three have both size and pace and Momorovski requires a really fast winger outside of him to complement his skills. We don't have one like JAC now.
 
Most talent is Dylan Smith but McIntyre will be first to debut centre or edge back row and has good impact. Good footballer.
 
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