Chicken_Faced_Killa
Well-known member
Exactly this doesn’t affect this year and it’s good to know early to plan for next year
OFFICIAL Kelma Tuilagi
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crazycat
Well-known member
Would like to see Ben Murdock M come back.
But I couldn't see him adding to our pack. He would be similar to the players we already have.
Still, would love to see him come back. Just because.
Only if we let him.
Atm can’t see that happening as we potentially lose minimum 5 top 17 forwards for us with only 1 nrl experienced replacement locked in.
Breaking down the forwards as a whole who are off contract next year or gone:
Props probable turnover - Mika & Tamou
Backrowers - Garner, Lucy, Tui, 2 of our development contracts.
Yes and No man, I see much more in Kelma than I've seen in Talau or Blore.
(so have Manly it would seem) and he'd have been good to have around, Not cost you the earth and could do a job on an edge or in the middle....
I think it's a bigger loss than some might think, We'll find out this year I feel.....
Speed2burn
Well-known member
Same here.
I was surprised Tuki got his debut before Kelma in all honesty….saw some pretty good signs from him in the trials at the start of the year & was a model of consistency in reserve grade.
bathursttiger1
Well-known member
BMM is under contract with the Warriors.
Speed2burn
Well-known member
Lee's fedora
Well-known member
Garner has told the tigers earlier he intends to leave end of his contract and go to manly with Kelma headed there now who knows
balmain boy
Well-known member
The players leaving are highly dispensable. They offer us very little. Mikaele may stay if he has a great year and we give him a good contract, but always the possibility of the Dolphins for him.
Joffa is a backup prop. That's it, given his option is probably at around 500k i don't think we'd see value in that.
Garner is useless and will be cut. Lucy is lazy and is moving on. Kelma from all reports has been offered something like 450-500k a year for 3 seasons. Is he that good? Probably not, totally unproven at this point.
Our dev backrowers will probably be given nrl contracts over the next 6 months, starting with Tumeth. And still more new signings to come for 2023 so really unless he kills it this year i think we'll let joffa walk
From what I could tell, he's been training wi
Matamua just signed for 3 years.
Some promising players coming through.
Tumeth and Matamua making future blues.
Matamua just signed for 3 years.
Some promising players coming through.
crazycat
Well-known member
Why?
"Angus Crichton, Corey Harawira-Naera, Heilum Luki, Ryan Matterson, Briton Nikora,"
I would pay Matterson his old 350k salary. If the price is right, sure.
Happy to pay Crichton to come and I think he has the right attitude and culture and has been a little on the outer at Easts.
Yet Easts, they are doing a Penrith aren't they. Last side that should be doing a Penrith. They have called back Momo, Watson and reformed their original playing group. A bunch of people who came up the ranks together, who like playing with each other.
Which is insane for the flight deck!
Our Club has tried to do the same. James Roberts played with Nofo in the juniors. Yet for some reason, players are signing with Easts who will happily flick people at the drop of a hat.
We need a pack that plays together and likes playing together. If you remember Ellis, Fulton, Heighington, Galloway, Payton... it was a good pack. A bunch of those guys have played 5+ years together. add 2x promising juniors and we go to the finals. I don't know how we get that again.
This is the problem - they are all disposable but at the cost of burning out young talent who then have zero chance to develop the right way.
We need old horse especially ones who know what it takes to make it in our side. Joffa might be surplus but every game he is having a dig and leaving it out on the field. If he played like Tamou or Garner wouldn’t hesitate but he doesn’t. I would prefer to hold him for another year unless we can bring in another experienced head to allow us to slowly bring in the younger kids than any of our other off contract forwards currently.
It’s all about roster management over the next 2-3 seasons and we need the right balance of 5-6 players deep for backrow and prop to allow the kids to mature on their own time. Joffa I think is an important one for us this and next season.
By some critical signings to lump with these young boys....
Even the guys you mentioned, They all came through behind the few no nonsense work horses already at the club (Skando, O'Neill, Galea, Senter, Sattler - to an extent)
I've said it before, All the talented kids in the world won't amount to anything if we don't have someone to keep them in line, teach them how to work!!
We tried it from 2012-2013... It failed miserably - It will fail if we try it again.
We've got little to none experience in the pack - Especially if we dump Tamou and Ofa after this year...
The Best 18 yr old Back Rowers in the world won't learn the game on and off the park on their own.
hank37w
Well-known member
Why? Because we should be building a culture and we can't do that by bringing back someone like Matterson with his disruptive, toxic attitude.
We need a pack that plays together and likes playing together. With someone like Matterson in the team you will never be able to achieve that for the reason I have just stated. I thought it was pretty well documented that Matterson had a falling out with the playing group at the time of his departure from Wests Tigers. Sorry, not wanted at any cost.
I don't know how we get that again. I'm not sure exactly how we go about getting that again either, but having the right kind of players and systems in place would be a good place to start and having a disruptive personality like Matterson on board is not part of the solution.
As previously stated, I would be happy with any of the other 4 players mentioned.
balmain boy
Well-known member
But some of our current younger/less experienced players will be replacing these older heads too. The development these current players will allow us to ease the youngsters into first grade.
We'll have Twal, Korisau, Papali'i, Musgrove, Peachey, Liddle, Stefano and perhaps Joffa or Mikaele too. That's a whole pack of experienced first graders, and no doubt a few more will join and some of these may leave.
And then the young guns like Pole, Matamua, Guyan, Tumeth, O'Kane, Tofaeno etc filling out the forwards squad.
Signing an experienced back rower for this season and next is the priority.
I can see Matamua playing first grade in 2023 for starters. If you're good enough you're old enough.
I will be very surprised if we get an experienced backrower that will add value for this season join.
Twal, Musgrove, Stefano are props. Musgrove has shown nothing for us yet. If he doesn’t get on the park and perform I’m writing him off = right now we have 2/3 of a 5/6 prop rotation needed
Papa should play backrow but he is a crash and play type which Madge loves up front and high risk he plays Prop for us. Even if he plays backrow we are still 5/6 rotational backrowers short
Peachy isn’t a backrower, Api isn’t.
Backrowers are a specialist role now they are outside defense blockers and inside 3rd man workhorses most the time with ability to run lines. The work effort and attacking structures they play very vital roles. Expecting a rookie bunch to all hold their own in NRL at the sametime is a disaster.
I have zero doubts some of these kids will kick on but only if we don’t rush them all together and expect miracles. We need to be a selfish club and provide a gradual injection for these kids - most of which BTW can’t even play for half the year at best anyway = next year becomes at best their rookie year. These kids are 3yrs away from cracking NRL fulltime. Look at Seyfarth, Tui, Blore etc they all struggle as the season grows & then the body breaksdown. The speed of the game is getting faster we need to be smarter.
Joe O is a walk up starter any day of the week for us and we would be stupid not taking the 1yr option up unless we have a quality replacement for him locked in.
No to Ofahengaue in the back row..he sucks there..Middle forward for me
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