@pawsandclaws1 said in [Signing Suggestions & Rumours](/post/1029645) said:
@Geo will Dillon and Scolari be considered for development contracts? Both have a lot of what we are short of.
You'd think that would depend on who else we can recruit externally. Already 3 development players signed for next year by the sounds of it: Cini and possibly Simpkin and Garner.
Henry LP is a dev player but was only promoted early this year so he may still be on a dev contract next year. You'd certainly hope he's not on an NRL squad next year at least! Otherwise our squad would already be practically full.
This is also why it's imperative to not re-sign Benji and Robbie. Unless we can offload Reynolds Benji has to go.
If Marshall goes and Reynolds doesn't, Marshall will have to be replaced with another 5/8 on a similar size of contract - ie not much. His departure isn't going to make much difference to the quality or makeup of the squad unless we hit a lottery ticket of a 5/8 that no-one else wants to pay for.
Next year we will have Brooks, Reynolds and Madden as noted halves with Mbye, Matto and Talau capable of also playing there.
Are you happy with our current squad? If we re-sign Liddle, Aloiai, Benji and Marshall we will have one spot left, and we're pretty much going to have the same squad next year as we do now. Everyone seems to lament our lack of pace and power, yet no one wants to release any of our current players except those on the most money.
He hasn't played there for us yet, but I wouldn't mind Talau getting a crack at 5/8 if Reynolds is out. His size will help in defence, and he can do a bit of everything. Of course if we offload Reynolds we can buy an established 5/8.
I can also see the club looking at a
6. Brooks
7. Madden
partnership in a year or two's time.
You're confusing two things. No, I'm not happy with the current squad. But freeing up the money we're currently spending on Benji Marshall isn't going to do much to improve it, barring hitting on a lottery ticket. I don't know how many times I need to say this: THE PROBLEM IS REYNOLDS. Until he's gone, we can't fix the halves long term.
There is no way we're going to go into 2020 with our 5/8 options being Reynolds (always injured, coach doesn't seem to rate him anyway), Madden (totally unproven) and someone playing out of position. Sorry, I take some of that back: I;m not going to claim to have a view on Madden - perhaps Maguire thinks he's ready to be first choice in first grade. I doubt it, but you never know.
I'm not some one-eyed Benji backer. I'd be delighted to see someone better line up in the 6 next year. But getting him out of the squad simply doesn't make much difference: someone needs to play at 5/8, we can't count on Reynolds doing it and Marshall's salary won't give us many options for a replacement.
It's not that I don't want to release players on small contracts, it's that doing so doesn't make much difference. You lose a player on minimum contract or close to it and you just replace them with another one. It may be possible to do better than Benji Marshall for next to no money but it's far from guaranteed, and if we let him walk we will be signing another 5/8.
It's about squad balance. If we already have 5/30 players capable of playing 5/8 then is it a position of priority? We could sign a Sezer, Keighan, Cust etc type if needs be.
And sometimes clubs need to back youth. We have both the 2018 Aussie schoolboys halves. One of them could do a job next to the Dally M halfback of the year if needs be. They will have their ups and downs but no more than what Benji does.
We can then sign some more props or forwards to help the halves have the space they need to perform.
You can believe what you like, but in the real world we are not going into 2020 with Reynolds, a 19 year old who isn't even in our top 30 at the moment and a bunch of fill-ins as our 5/8 options. Saying we have 5/30 players capable of playing 5/8 is meaningless: without Marshall, the current top 30 has one actual 5/8 in it and he has played half a dozen games in a season and a half.
There will be another specialist half, and if it's not Marshall there's still not going to be cap room available from releasing Marshall sufficient to add much elsewhere in the squad. You seem to be fixated on the idea that if we can just get Benji Marshall off the books we'll be able to strengthen elsewhere. You're dreaming.
Really not sure if you understand cap management. You need to have a combo of highly paid an lowly paid players. Sometimes you have to play the kids on lower contracts. Clubs do it all the time. Why wouldn't we?
We have around 300 games of NRL halves experience (excluding Brooks) in our top squad for next year. These are players with Origin experience too. Not exactly nobodies. If we re-sign Benji that's one fewer squad positions we have to recruit with for next season. Be that a forward or a replacement half. Going for a younger option, particularly a goal kicking one, is not any worse than having someone as erratic as Benji. Brooks needs to lead the team anyway, he will be our dominant half in 2020.
