Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Tim Sheens]

Australia is going downhill. This is not a Lib/Labor thing...Howard left the country with money in the bank in 2007 and in 18 years both parties have accumulated nearly a trillion dollars in debt. They reckon 50% of the country relies on tax money for payments so that starts at government workers down to welfare recipients. Totally unsustainable. Add the government overreach into our lives, high taxes and basically giving up all privacy and I don't hold out much hope. Apologies for the rant.

Howard left the nation with a structural deficit, no apologies for the fact.

 

[Bus 2 Terrigal]

Good work looking it all up, I was trying to find the info at times but couldn't find anything concrete. Imo if HBG and also by extension in the past Wests Campbelltown and Balmain Leagues thought that the amount they were providing was sufficient or still is, it's evident to me imo we will get nowhere in the current ownership structure. If we are that far behind the other clubs in terms of funding from HBG then it just shows me everyone involved in the club now and in the past we're just happy to have a team running around in first grade, while us fans crave success they just wanted to participate. That form of commitment won't lead to any sustained success long term unless there's a serious change in viewpoint from the owners, in that through pumping money into the Tigers it eventually in a decade provides success which brings in more members, sponsors 3rd party deals, corporate opportunities so the club can stand on its own to feet and maintain a competative and successfull future. If the owners are just happy to have a team in the comp we will never get anywhere. I'm no expert but think this points to a bigger picture issue of how the debenture structure at HBG isn't ideal. Imo if there were actual real corporate and business leaders running HBG I think we would be getting much more funding. It boggles my mind that not making finals for now 14 years noone in the HBG boardroom has thought maybe we need to be pumping more money into the Tigers.

This post had me thinking back to Kerry Packer’s classic senate estimates spray when he told the powers that be -

“I am not evading tax in any way, shape, or form. Now, of course I am minimising my tax, and if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax, they want the heads read. Because as a government, I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.

HBG could well mount the same argument 👍

 

[Tom Shines]

Can you tax dodgers find a political forum please ?

 

[Vicious]

So you spending 2 of our 4 remaining spots on wingers now? That will help us climb the ladder when they are getting dominated in the middle each week

Part of the reason we keep getting dominated in the middle is because we lack speed and line break ability out wide which means we are no threat to our opposition when trying to play around them and they condense their defence without any concerns because of it.
If we want to become a top 4 team you can’t have Turuva and Skelton on each wing, you can have one of them and the other winger needs to be a genuine speedster whether that is someone like Sam Stonestreet who has plenty of height, does reasonably well out of yardage and is an aerial threat aside from his genuine speed, Sione Finau who is also powerful out of yardage, has a bit of height and has genuine speed and tackle busting ability or Aliofa Khan-Pereira who is not quite as good out of yardage, but more than compensates by being close to the fastest player in the NRL, a try scoring freak and makes rival teams think twice about condensing their defence so much as they know they will get hurt by a shift out to him if they do.
Based on the above information we should be recruiting a winger with speed and genuine x-factor and have Skelton challenging Turuva for our other with wing spot.
That would provide the depth and competition that good teams have and we require would t you think ?

 

[Kelce68]

Come on mate it was 8ks over at night with absolutely no one on the road, are you a copper.

Nah, I'm not.

But my best man was for 23 years until he didn't come home to his kids one night.

So I'm pretty sensitive to the job they have to do and the trash they have to deal with.

It's f&%ked.

And while I get the frustration towards cops at times; the vast, vast majority of them are good people working a horrible job.

I don't want to make a thing out of it, I just wanted to add a bit of perspective on a viewpoint like that.

 

[coivtny]

This post had me thinking back to Kerry Packer’s classic senate estimates spray when he told the powers that be -

“I am not evading tax in any way, shape, or form. Now, of course I am minimising my tax, and if anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax, they want the heads read. Because as a government, I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra.

HBG could well mount the same argument 👍

Didn't always love KP but loved that comment. I also loved his comment on the possibility of an afterlife after he was pronounced dead and brought back to life. He said "son, I've been to the other side - and let me tell you, there's nothing there.""

 

[Tom Shines]

Part of the reason we keep getting dominated in the middle is because we lack speed and line break ability out wide which means we are no threat to our opposition when trying to play around them and they condense their defence without any concerns because of it.
If we want tj become a top 4 team you can’t have Turuva and Skelton in the same team, you can’t have one of them and the other winger needs to be a genuine speedster whether that is someone like Sam Stonestreet who has plenty of height, does reasonably well out of yardage and is an aerial threat aside from his genuine speed, Sione Finau who is also powerful out of yardage, has a bit of height and has genuine speed and tackle busting shoot Aliofa Khan-Pereira who is not quite as good out of yardage, but more than compensates by being close to the fastest player in the NRL and makes rival teams think twice about condensing their defence so much as they know they will get hurt by a shift out to him if they do.
The solution, recruit a winger with speed and genuine x-factor and have Skelton challenging Turuva for our other with wing spot.
That would provide the depth and competition that good teams have and we require would t you think ?

Our wingers have got little to do with the forward problems …

Turuva just won two premierships … now he isn’t good enough for us? His partner at Penrith was To’o… is he a speedster ?

They have to get to be a Top 12 and then a Top 8 team first before a Top 4 team .. get to that stage and then I might worry about whether Skelton needs to be replaced compared with other issues …. He did the job early in the year …

 

[Vicious]

Our wingers have got little to do with the forward problems …

Turuva just won two premierships … now he isn’t good enough for us? His partner at Penrith was To’o… is he a speedster ?

They have to get to be a Top 12 and then a Top 8 team first before a Top 4 team .. get to that stage and then I might worry about whether Skelton needs to be replaced compared with other issues …. He did the job early in the year …

If you haven’t noticed that Panthers team included Cleary, Yeo, Edwards and Martin.
If we had those players we could get away with slowish, boring, grinding wingers too, but we don’t have those calibre of players, so we need to compensate in other areas.

 

[weststigers]

Howard left the nation with a structural deficit, no apologies for the fact.

A structural defecit means expenses are increasing faster than revenues. That is what I'm saying. We were in the black and for whatever reason, in 18 years we are nearly a trillion in debt.

The public just sits there like trained seals and does exactly what you've done and defend their political alliances. It's about the money...your money. If Australia was a business, it would be in liquidation by now. I've lost all faith in politicians ability to manage our tax revenue responsibly. That goes for both parties.

You've understood my post as me saying Howard is great and the rest are terrible. It's a financial comment. Not a political comment.

 

[Tom Shines]

If you haven’t noticed that Panthers team included Cleary, Yeo, Edwards and Martin.
If we had those players we could get away with slowish, boring, grinding wingers too, but we don’t have those calibre of players, so we need to compensate in other areas.

Yeah Penrith has good forwards ..we don’t … that’s why I’m saying upgrade that area first ..then worry about the wingers …

I would love to do both but I doubt we have money and spots available

 

[weststigers]

You brought Little Johnny up. We were all talking about Speed pigs!

People don't get loans. They don't get that a government debt at 2% is better then a private debt at a higher percentage... which is better then a credit card debt 9-19% approx.

But back to Speed Pigs... Anyone been booked for a mobile phone usage?
it's 5 points and doubled on public holidays. I almost lost my license on that one.
Look I get it, but I also think the penalty is too steep.

So are you saying the public took out loans and credit cards in their own name 20 years ago to pay off the public debt?

It's widely known the Howard government sold public assets to achieve the debt payoff and be in the black. This is no miraculous feat of financial management. This is what your average punter has to do if your debt is too high. Ultimately, you are forced to sell your assets to get back to where you need to be.

The point is. When you are back in the black. You made the sacrifice already. Stay there! Don't repeat the same mistake again!

Both governments trashed a terrific opportunity for the Australian people.

 

[Tigerbenb]

Until we get a forward pack who goes forward, we need wingers who are hit up merchants like Skelton and Turuva. Unfortunately AFK has no base in terms of work rate.

Our wingers make up for the fact our backrow consistently makes under 150m between all 3 of them.

Yeah I get your point, Skelton doesn’t make that many, certainly doesn’t make up for defensive errors, poor ball handling, and he has no speed. Agree with others, would love to see Samuela in the front row. For all we know we our keyboards, Dessie may instruct afk- “ I want you first on kick chase, and if you get a sniff - pin ya ears back son. Defensively I thought he was better than Skelton and toa - but presently that is not hard.

 

[hank37w]

Because he has more impact in 20 minutes than our other forwards do in 80.

Sorry but it didn't turn out that way on the day and he got hooked.

 

[weststigers]

That’s what we said about Marika Koroibete and Josh Addo-Carr when they were regularly scoring long range tries for us in Reserve Grade and we ended up letting them go because we didn’t believe they were good enough defenders.
That worked out really well, they both headed down to Melbourne to become stars and premiership winners.
Good coaches will work with wingers who are attacking freaks to bring their defence up to a satisfactory level,
Unfortunately not even a good coach can turn slower boring wingers into fast, exciting attacking players and try scoring freaks,

I don't think that's why Koroibete and Addo-Carr left.

 

[Tom Shines]

Yeah I get your point, Skelton doesn’t make that many, certainly doesn’t make up for defensive errors, poor ball handling, and he has no speed.

I’ll make an excuse for Skelton last week ..he scored a couple of tries against the Titans playing outside Taylan, but Benji decided to break that combination up… Skelton played outside Toa who has become the worst defender in the team of late …and the result was that side being heavily targeted

 

[weststigerman]

Outside of Benji's lack of experience his main issue is his choice of assistants. The current crop outside of Morris are very inexperienced. Don't we have additional soft cap with the transfer fees from Galvin and Tds. Why don't we spend this on some gun assistants. But this will mean that Benji needs to accept that he needs help.

You’re right but I believe a key issue is the club can’t afford to get higher level assistants.

HBG are cashed up but are only putting in the bare minimum.

At least that is what I’ve heard.

 

[Vicious]

I don't think that's why Koroibete and Addo-Carr left.

I think you will find it is, they were playing reserve grade and scoring unbelievable long range tries every week, but we would not put them in our NRL team on a regular basis because we were concerned they were not good enough defenders.
Wingers with speed who can score long range tries and keep their opponents worried about them are invaluable.

 

[Vicious]

I’ll make an excuse for Skelton last week ..he scored a couple of tries against the Titans playing outside Taylan, but Benji decided to break that combination up… Skelton played outside Toa who has become the worst defender in the team of late …and the result was that side being heavily targeted

I’m not saying Skelton is not a good player, what I’m saying is like many parts of our team line up, our balance on our wings is all wrong due to not having at least one of them who has blistering speed, can make long range line breaks, score long range tries and make our opponents think twice about condensing their defence so much when we are coming out of our danger zone.
When was the last time you saw us make a long range line break or score a long range try ?
Every other club either does it or at least threatens to do it much more regularly than us, do you not see that as a problem or do you think we should just continue the one out boring crap that we continue to dish up and wonder why we continue to lose the yardage battle ?
Our pop gun kicking game also contributes, but that doesn’t look like changing for the better anytime soon, so we need to add improvements somewhere.

 

[tigahhh]

I think you will find it is, they were playing reserve grade and scoring unbelievable long range tries every week, but we would not put them in our NRL team on a regular basis because we were concerned they were not good enough defenders.
Wingers with speed who can score long range tries and keep their opponents worried about them are invaluable.

Tyrell sloan is an exact example of that not being true

 

[Vicious]

Tyrell sloan is an exact example of that not being true

Have you missed his long range line breaks and tries, quite a few recently ?
The Dragons are not struggling as badly as us in the yardage battle week after week and their forwards generally make less metres per game than ours.
So ask yourself how that happens ?
They are not afraid and have the right type of players with speed to challenge their opposition with an early/long range shift.