Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Strider]

Man, we need a good lock badly. Someone with great ball playing skills like Jake Trbojevic. Our lock options quite poor. We need a lot of signings badly.

 

[851]

More dribble - read headline then last paragraph.
**Top tryscorer was ‘very close’ to signing with Tigers. But the club blew it with a lowball offer**
NRL PREMIERSHIP
Darcie McDonald
September 29, 2020 2:19pm
DARCIE MCDONALD
Source: FOX SPORTS

Fresh off a five-try clinic against the Roosters on Friday, South Sydney flyer Alex Johnston has revealed he was “days” away from inking a deal with the Wests Tigers.
The 25-year-old, who finished the season as the competition’s top tryscorer, re-signed with the Rabbitohs earlier this month after the club backflipped on their decision to let him go.


Johnston was informed by the club in October last year that salary cap space will be tight in 2021 and there may not be room for him. Then in April, South Sydney let Johnston know that they could not make him an offer for 2021 as there was only space for minimum wage contracts. It was heartbreaking news for the local junior who has been nothing but a fantastic ambassador and consistent player for the Bunnies.


Resigned to the fact he wouldn’t be a Rabbitoh next season he began talks with other clubs. During that time, his looming exit came to light and outraged fans began a petition to keep Johnston at Redfern.

There was plenty of interest in the former Kangaroos winger with the Bulldogs, Cowboys, Storm and Tigers all talking to Johnston and his manager. The Storm and Tigers made an offer to Johnston before the Rabbitohs came to the table with a deal as well, which Johnston took despite it being around $100,000 less per year than what Melbourne offered.


Johnston revealed on Tuesday that he was actually “very close” to signing with either the Storm or Tigers. He was keen to reunite with former Bunnies coach Michael Maguire whom he wont the 2014 Grand Final with but the problem with the Tigers though was that they offered him a lowball deal. And for the record he never expected or asked for big money or ‘fullback money,’ contrary to many reports.

“They were the main two (Storm and Tigers). I was very close, and it pretty much came down to a couple of days there where it was 50/50,” he said.

“The other clubs were very good to me, very tempting and I think I’d say 50/50 were the odds at the end of the day.

“It was pretty weird to think about it. I gave myself every chance to try and stay in Sydney and stay with Souths, and I’m just lucky that it came through.

“I don’t want to say too much about what went on, but the Tigers deal was not as high as other clubs.”


It was a tough slog for Johnston who has always wanted to be a one-club man. He described the period as a “rollercoaster” and admitted that he held onto a “a little bit of hope” that Souths could work something out to keep him.

“Mentally it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me. A lot of ups and downs – I just tried to use it as motivation the best I could at the start of the year. The longer the season went, the longer it was playing on my mind,” he said.

“I was pretty stoked to have some interest from other clubs and then finally sign the contract, it was a huge relief. I get to stay at Souths and now I think my best footy is coming to fruition.


“I did hold a little bit of hope there when sometimes it didn’t look like it was going to happen. If I kept playing good footy and staying motivated, something might happen and I’m very fortunate that it did.

“Wayne pulled me aside and said he was going to do his best to keep me and to hang in there. Once it came through that there was a contract there, I was pretty stoked and couldn’t wait to put pen to paper.”

The Tigers are in the market for a number of positions with Maguire letting go of eight players ahead of the 2021 season.

Storm star Josh Addo-Carr has been linked to a return to the Tigers, his former club, which could be the reason why they weren’t able to offer Johnston a better deal. After missing out on Johnston’s signature, the Tigers are desperate to land Addo-Carr and are also reportedly eyeing Raiders winger Jordan Rapana.

Still paints us in a bad light, we are panned for offering and paying way overs which is fair enough, and now for offering unders, some at the club need to do their homework in regards to market value. But when the Roosters supposedly offer unders, it is good cap management, we need some good signings to get the media circus of our backs

 

[avocadoontoast]

I've never been a fan of Tolman at all but I was pretty surprised to see he averaged 140m per game and over 40 tackles. Statistically he would have been our best forward.

He’s always been good for stats problem is whenever he touches the ball the teams entire momentum goes, he slowly goes to the line and takes the tackle rarely offloading. Plays a lot like Gallen In his final few seasons lots of fourth tackle hit ups killing the play lol

I'm not suggesting we sign him but we do need some forwards that make metres and have good defence. Our pack has been monstered 10 weeks straight and whilst Tamou will make some improvements, we need more than 1 player (and the jury is out on Stefano due to limited minutes). Mikaele, Twal had disappointing seasons and Eiso is gone.

We do too much defending and don’t make enough metres. It’s on the pack and our halves to fix that goes both ways I think

Our halves were awful but our forwards were the biggest disappointment imo, especially for the last half of the year. Nowhere near enough metres to be competitive and overall poor defence. I had high hopes for Twal and Mikaele but they both had very poor seasons, Mikaele in particular. Not sure what happened to him.

Injuries affected both those guys. Hopefully Mikaele gets that knee fixed up and after his long layoff Twal didn’t find his form again, prior to that he was up there with the best forwards in the comp.

Pack definitely needs improving and Madge would be hoping Tamou helps not just on the field but off it. If all our forwards can play their best footy it’s a strong team it’s just consistency that always plagues us

Twal was up there defensively but he was never close to one of the best ball runners in the comp. He's been disappointing. We'll see about Mikaele. But if we enter next season as it stands with no new forwards we're going to get smoked every week once again.

Twal doesn’t make damaging runs but he’ll make good metres and find his front. Mikaele showed that he can be very good in a few games this year but overall struggled. Don’t see our pack changing that much as with the rest of the squad it’ll be 2022 where there’ll be major changes

he only ran over 100m 4 times all season. Needs to do better than that.

Especially when his whole reputation was built up being a dude who will give you 15 hitups 120m , and 30 tackles. His impact has been reduced since moving to 13

Yep I agree. He needs to be in the prop rotation next season, with McIntyre taking the 13 jumper imo.

Does anyone think the Coaching and performance guys ever think of this..

You think he should be in the prop rotation too, rather than lock?

 

[851]

I've never been a fan of Tolman at all but I was pretty surprised to see he averaged 140m per game and over 40 tackles. Statistically he would have been our best forward.

He’s always been good for stats problem is whenever he touches the ball the teams entire momentum goes, he slowly goes to the line and takes the tackle rarely offloading. Plays a lot like Gallen In his final few seasons lots of fourth tackle hit ups killing the play lol

I'm not suggesting we sign him but we do need some forwards that make metres and have good defence. Our pack has been monstered 10 weeks straight and whilst Tamou will make some improvements, we need more than 1 player (and the jury is out on Stefano due to limited minutes). Mikaele, Twal had disappointing seasons and Eiso is gone.

We do too much defending and don’t make enough metres. It’s on the pack and our halves to fix that goes both ways I think

Our halves were awful but our forwards were the biggest disappointment imo, especially for the last half of the year. Nowhere near enough metres to be competitive and overall poor defence. I had high hopes for Twal and Mikaele but they both had very poor seasons, Mikaele in particular. Not sure what happened to him.

Injuries affected both those guys. Hopefully Mikaele gets that knee fixed up and after his long layoff Twal didn’t find his form again, prior to that he was up there with the best forwards in the comp.

Pack definitely needs improving and Madge would be hoping Tamou helps not just on the field but off it. If all our forwards can play their best footy it’s a strong team it’s just consistency that always plagues us

Twal was up there defensively but he was never close to one of the best ball runners in the comp. He's been disappointing. We'll see about Mikaele. But if we enter next season as it stands with no new forwards we're going to get smoked every week once again.

Twal doesn’t make damaging runs but he’ll make good metres and find his front. Mikaele showed that he can be very good in a few games this year but overall struggled. Don’t see our pack changing that much as with the rest of the squad it’ll be 2022 where there’ll be major changes

he only ran over 100m 4 times all season. Needs to do better than that.

Especially when his whole reputation was built up being a dude who will give you 15 hitups 120m , and 30 tackles. His impact has been reduced since moving to 13

Yep I agree. He needs to be in the prop rotation next season, with McIntyre taking the 13 jumper imo.

Does anyone think the Coaching and performance guys ever think of this..

I don't think they do, they persisted with Twal at 13 even though it wasn't working, much like a few other players who weren't working, the players under performed, but so did Madge, on quite a few fronts

 

[rihannafan1]

More dribble - read headline then last paragraph.
**Top tryscorer was ‘very close’ to signing with Tigers. But the club blew it with a lowball offer**
NRL PREMIERSHIP
Darcie McDonald
September 29, 2020 2:19pm
DARCIE MCDONALD
Source: FOX SPORTS

Fresh off a five-try clinic against the Roosters on Friday, South Sydney flyer Alex Johnston has revealed he was “days” away from inking a deal with the Wests Tigers.
The 25-year-old, who finished the season as the competition’s top tryscorer, re-signed with the Rabbitohs earlier this month after the club backflipped on their decision to let him go.


Johnston was informed by the club in October last year that salary cap space will be tight in 2021 and there may not be room for him. Then in April, South Sydney let Johnston know that they could not make him an offer for 2021 as there was only space for minimum wage contracts. It was heartbreaking news for the local junior who has been nothing but a fantastic ambassador and consistent player for the Bunnies.


Resigned to the fact he wouldn’t be a Rabbitoh next season he began talks with other clubs. During that time, his looming exit came to light and outraged fans began a petition to keep Johnston at Redfern.

There was plenty of interest in the former Kangaroos winger with the Bulldogs, Cowboys, Storm and Tigers all talking to Johnston and his manager. The Storm and Tigers made an offer to Johnston before the Rabbitohs came to the table with a deal as well, which Johnston took despite it being around $100,000 less per year than what Melbourne offered.


Johnston revealed on Tuesday that he was actually “very close” to signing with either the Storm or Tigers. He was keen to reunite with former Bunnies coach Michael Maguire whom he wont the 2014 Grand Final with but the problem with the Tigers though was that they offered him a lowball deal. And for the record he never expected or asked for big money or ‘fullback money,’ contrary to many reports.

“They were the main two (Storm and Tigers). I was very close, and it pretty much came down to a couple of days there where it was 50/50,” he said.

“The other clubs were very good to me, very tempting and I think I’d say 50/50 were the odds at the end of the day.

“It was pretty weird to think about it. I gave myself every chance to try and stay in Sydney and stay with Souths, and I’m just lucky that it came through.

“I don’t want to say too much about what went on, but the Tigers deal was not as high as other clubs.”


It was a tough slog for Johnston who has always wanted to be a one-club man. He described the period as a “rollercoaster” and admitted that he held onto a “a little bit of hope” that Souths could work something out to keep him.

“Mentally it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me. A lot of ups and downs – I just tried to use it as motivation the best I could at the start of the year. The longer the season went, the longer it was playing on my mind,” he said.

“I was pretty stoked to have some interest from other clubs and then finally sign the contract, it was a huge relief. I get to stay at Souths and now I think my best footy is coming to fruition.


“I did hold a little bit of hope there when sometimes it didn’t look like it was going to happen. If I kept playing good footy and staying motivated, something might happen and I’m very fortunate that it did.

“Wayne pulled me aside and said he was going to do his best to keep me and to hang in there. Once it came through that there was a contract there, I was pretty stoked and couldn’t wait to put pen to paper.”

The Tigers are in the market for a number of positions with Maguire letting go of eight players ahead of the 2021 season.

Storm star Josh Addo-Carr has been linked to a return to the Tigers, his former club, which could be the reason why they weren’t able to offer Johnston a better deal. After missing out on Johnston’s signature, the Tigers are desperate to land Addo-Carr and are also reportedly eyeing Raiders winger Jordan Rapana.

Thanks for the heads up. Glad we offered what we did.

I dunno who is in this writer's ear to make her state that it was a lowball offer. Last I knew that was a term of criticism. But...

If the bloke was in demand he'd have been offered better than us by a Sydney club. And he wasn't. Even his own club didn't want to keep him.

Lowball? Sounds more like market value to me.

 

[JC99]

I've never been a fan of Tolman at all but I was pretty surprised to see he averaged 140m per game and over 40 tackles. Statistically he would have been our best forward.

He’s always been good for stats problem is whenever he touches the ball the teams entire momentum goes, he slowly goes to the line and takes the tackle rarely offloading. Plays a lot like Gallen In his final few seasons lots of fourth tackle hit ups killing the play lol

I'm not suggesting we sign him but we do need some forwards that make metres and have good defence. Our pack has been monstered 10 weeks straight and whilst Tamou will make some improvements, we need more than 1 player (and the jury is out on Stefano due to limited minutes). Mikaele, Twal had disappointing seasons and Eiso is gone.

We do too much defending and don’t make enough metres. It’s on the pack and our halves to fix that goes both ways I think

Our halves were awful but our forwards were the biggest disappointment imo, especially for the last half of the year. Nowhere near enough metres to be competitive and overall poor defence. I had high hopes for Twal and Mikaele but they both had very poor seasons, Mikaele in particular. Not sure what happened to him.

Injuries affected both those guys. Hopefully Mikaele gets that knee fixed up and after his long layoff Twal didn’t find his form again, prior to that he was up there with the best forwards in the comp.

Pack definitely needs improving and Madge would be hoping Tamou helps not just on the field but off it. If all our forwards can play their best footy it’s a strong team it’s just consistency that always plagues us

Twal was up there defensively but he was never close to one of the best ball runners in the comp. He's been disappointing. We'll see about Mikaele. But if we enter next season as it stands with no new forwards we're going to get smoked every week once again.

Twal doesn’t make damaging runs but he’ll make good metres and find his front. Mikaele showed that he can be very good in a few games this year but overall struggled. Don’t see our pack changing that much as with the rest of the squad it’ll be 2022 where there’ll be major changes

he only ran over 100m 4 times all season. Needs to do better than that.

Whole lot better than our other forwards. He’s the least of our worries he’s proven he can play pretty well and pump out big minutes if need be.

Aloiai was our best middle forward in 2020. Not even close. Eisenhuth was probably second best (which is a worry).

Aloiai had his best year in a tigers jersey this year. Twal was very very disappointing. Hopefully it was injuries and he can deliver what he’s capable of in 2021

I find the critique on Twal harsh. Start of the year everyone wanted him playing origin, a few average games (not even bad) after injury and all of a sudden it’s been a bad year. Recency bias has affected peoples memories I reckon. He still averaged more metres a game than almost all our forwards and is still our best defender.

A starting pack of Aloiai, Tamou, Twal, Luc and Blore will be decent it’s the bench that might be an issue. Musgrove looks decent, Stefano hopefully goes good, Mikaele is inconsistent and McIntyre while looking good is not a numbers guy.

 

[tonza]

More dribble - read headline then last paragraph.
**Top tryscorer was ‘very close’ to signing with Tigers. But the club blew it with a lowball offer**
NRL PREMIERSHIP
Darcie McDonald
September 29, 2020 2:19pm
DARCIE MCDONALD
Source: FOX SPORTS

Fresh off a five-try clinic against the Roosters on Friday, South Sydney flyer Alex Johnston has revealed he was “days” away from inking a deal with the Wests Tigers.
The 25-year-old, who finished the season as the competition’s top tryscorer, re-signed with the Rabbitohs earlier this month after the club backflipped on their decision to let him go.


Johnston was informed by the club in October last year that salary cap space will be tight in 2021 and there may not be room for him. Then in April, South Sydney let Johnston know that they could not make him an offer for 2021 as there was only space for minimum wage contracts. It was heartbreaking news for the local junior who has been nothing but a fantastic ambassador and consistent player for the Bunnies.


Resigned to the fact he wouldn’t be a Rabbitoh next season he began talks with other clubs. During that time, his looming exit came to light and outraged fans began a petition to keep Johnston at Redfern.

There was plenty of interest in the former Kangaroos winger with the Bulldogs, Cowboys, Storm and Tigers all talking to Johnston and his manager. The Storm and Tigers made an offer to Johnston before the Rabbitohs came to the table with a deal as well, which Johnston took despite it being around $100,000 less per year than what Melbourne offered.


Johnston revealed on Tuesday that he was actually “very close” to signing with either the Storm or Tigers. He was keen to reunite with former Bunnies coach Michael Maguire whom he wont the 2014 Grand Final with but the problem with the Tigers though was that they offered him a lowball deal. And for the record he never expected or asked for big money or ‘fullback money,’ contrary to many reports.

“They were the main two (Storm and Tigers). I was very close, and it pretty much came down to a couple of days there where it was 50/50,” he said.

“The other clubs were very good to me, very tempting and I think I’d say 50/50 were the odds at the end of the day.

“It was pretty weird to think about it. I gave myself every chance to try and stay in Sydney and stay with Souths, and I’m just lucky that it came through.

“I don’t want to say too much about what went on, but the Tigers deal was not as high as other clubs.”


It was a tough slog for Johnston who has always wanted to be a one-club man. He described the period as a “rollercoaster” and admitted that he held onto a “a little bit of hope” that Souths could work something out to keep him.

“Mentally it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me. A lot of ups and downs – I just tried to use it as motivation the best I could at the start of the year. The longer the season went, the longer it was playing on my mind,” he said.

“I was pretty stoked to have some interest from other clubs and then finally sign the contract, it was a huge relief. I get to stay at Souths and now I think my best footy is coming to fruition.


“I did hold a little bit of hope there when sometimes it didn’t look like it was going to happen. If I kept playing good footy and staying motivated, something might happen and I’m very fortunate that it did.

“Wayne pulled me aside and said he was going to do his best to keep me and to hang in there. Once it came through that there was a contract there, I was pretty stoked and couldn’t wait to put pen to paper.”

The Tigers are in the market for a number of positions with Maguire letting go of eight players ahead of the 2021 season.

Storm star Josh Addo-Carr has been linked to a return to the Tigers, his former club, which could be the reason why they weren’t able to offer Johnston a better deal. After missing out on Johnston’s signature, the Tigers are desperate to land Addo-Carr and are also reportedly eyeing Raiders winger Jordan Rapana.

So what Alex. We made you an offer, no need to whinge about the amount. We offered what we thought you were worth. No real loss.

Dont know why he is complaining. He said he took $100,000.less to stay at Souths, so our offer must have been on the money.

 

[Strider]

Twal should stay in the team as a bench prop. We need better than him for core pack to be competitive. He definitely shouldn't play lock

 

[avocadoontoast]

I've never been a fan of Tolman at all but I was pretty surprised to see he averaged 140m per game and over 40 tackles. Statistically he would have been our best forward.

He’s always been good for stats problem is whenever he touches the ball the teams entire momentum goes, he slowly goes to the line and takes the tackle rarely offloading. Plays a lot like Gallen In his final few seasons lots of fourth tackle hit ups killing the play lol

I'm not suggesting we sign him but we do need some forwards that make metres and have good defence. Our pack has been monstered 10 weeks straight and whilst Tamou will make some improvements, we need more than 1 player (and the jury is out on Stefano due to limited minutes). Mikaele, Twal had disappointing seasons and Eiso is gone.

We do too much defending and don’t make enough metres. It’s on the pack and our halves to fix that goes both ways I think

Our halves were awful but our forwards were the biggest disappointment imo, especially for the last half of the year. Nowhere near enough metres to be competitive and overall poor defence. I had high hopes for Twal and Mikaele but they both had very poor seasons, Mikaele in particular. Not sure what happened to him.

Injuries affected both those guys. Hopefully Mikaele gets that knee fixed up and after his long layoff Twal didn’t find his form again, prior to that he was up there with the best forwards in the comp.

Pack definitely needs improving and Madge would be hoping Tamou helps not just on the field but off it. If all our forwards can play their best footy it’s a strong team it’s just consistency that always plagues us

Twal was up there defensively but he was never close to one of the best ball runners in the comp. He's been disappointing. We'll see about Mikaele. But if we enter next season as it stands with no new forwards we're going to get smoked every week once again.

Twal doesn’t make damaging runs but he’ll make good metres and find his front. Mikaele showed that he can be very good in a few games this year but overall struggled. Don’t see our pack changing that much as with the rest of the squad it’ll be 2022 where there’ll be major changes

he only ran over 100m 4 times all season. Needs to do better than that.

Whole lot better than our other forwards. He’s the least of our worries he’s proven he can play pretty well and pump out big minutes if need be.

Aloiai was our best middle forward in 2020. Not even close. Eisenhuth was probably second best (which is a worry).

Aloiai had his best year in a tigers jersey this year. Twal was very very disappointing. Hopefully it was injuries and he can deliver what he’s capable of in 2021

I find the critique on Twal harsh. Start of the year everyone wanted him playing origin, a few average games (not even bad) after injury and all of a sudden it’s been a bad year. Recency bias has affected peoples memories I reckon. He still averaged more metres a game than almost all our forwards and is still our best defender.

A starting pack of Aloiai, Tamou, Twal, Luc and Blore will be decent it’s the bench that might be an issue. Musgrove looks decent, Stefano hopefully goes good, Mikaele is inconsistent and McIntyre while looking good is not a numbers guy.

You're a generous marker. He had a poor season. And who wanted him to play origin? He's nowhere near that level. Not yet anyway.

 

[old_man_tiger]

Twal started well at lock. Came back from injury and played like a pillow. Was ripping in and running harder earlier.

On Johnston, this was probably part of our strategy to get JAC. Make Melbourne and souths more attractive to a tryscoring flyer. Bloke is good for a bunch of beauties and a bunch of rubbish too, like most wingers. We get that mix with our current lot and Kepoa seems fast enough when in space so I'd give him a chance to work on his hands unless a serious upgrade comes along

 

[TigerSJ]

Twal in Origin ??? What as - a prop or a lock? I think there are plenty in front of him in both positions.
Twal is not my idea of a current day lock especially under the new rules. He has no real ball skills, no passing or kicking game, no deception, no offload and he has even lost his leg drive making him submissive in contact.
He needs to find the angry beast within him or he won’t make the bench.

 

[Needaname]

are Twal, Garner, Reynolds, Packer and Mbye the remaining few of the Cleary recruits?

 

[Roar_Power]

Geez, not long ago Twal was every second WT fans favourite player. How the tables have turned....

 

[JC99]

I've never been a fan of Tolman at all but I was pretty surprised to see he averaged 140m per game and over 40 tackles. Statistically he would have been our best forward.

He’s always been good for stats problem is whenever he touches the ball the teams entire momentum goes, he slowly goes to the line and takes the tackle rarely offloading. Plays a lot like Gallen In his final few seasons lots of fourth tackle hit ups killing the play lol

I'm not suggesting we sign him but we do need some forwards that make metres and have good defence. Our pack has been monstered 10 weeks straight and whilst Tamou will make some improvements, we need more than 1 player (and the jury is out on Stefano due to limited minutes). Mikaele, Twal had disappointing seasons and Eiso is gone.

We do too much defending and don’t make enough metres. It’s on the pack and our halves to fix that goes both ways I think

Our halves were awful but our forwards were the biggest disappointment imo, especially for the last half of the year. Nowhere near enough metres to be competitive and overall poor defence. I had high hopes for Twal and Mikaele but they both had very poor seasons, Mikaele in particular. Not sure what happened to him.

Injuries affected both those guys. Hopefully Mikaele gets that knee fixed up and after his long layoff Twal didn’t find his form again, prior to that he was up there with the best forwards in the comp.

Pack definitely needs improving and Madge would be hoping Tamou helps not just on the field but off it. If all our forwards can play their best footy it’s a strong team it’s just consistency that always plagues us

Twal was up there defensively but he was never close to one of the best ball runners in the comp. He's been disappointing. We'll see about Mikaele. But if we enter next season as it stands with no new forwards we're going to get smoked every week once again.

Twal doesn’t make damaging runs but he’ll make good metres and find his front. Mikaele showed that he can be very good in a few games this year but overall struggled. Don’t see our pack changing that much as with the rest of the squad it’ll be 2022 where there’ll be major changes

he only ran over 100m 4 times all season. Needs to do better than that.

Whole lot better than our other forwards. He’s the least of our worries he’s proven he can play pretty well and pump out big minutes if need be.

Aloiai was our best middle forward in 2020. Not even close. Eisenhuth was probably second best (which is a worry).

Aloiai had his best year in a tigers jersey this year. Twal was very very disappointing. Hopefully it was injuries and he can deliver what he’s capable of in 2021

I find the critique on Twal harsh. Start of the year everyone wanted him playing origin, a few average games (not even bad) after injury and all of a sudden it’s been a bad year. Recency bias has affected peoples memories I reckon. He still averaged more metres a game than almost all our forwards and is still our best defender.

A starting pack of Aloiai, Tamou, Twal, Luc and Blore will be decent it’s the bench that might be an issue. Musgrove looks decent, Stefano hopefully goes good, Mikaele is inconsistent and McIntyre while looking good is not a numbers guy.

You're a generous marker. He had a poor season. And who wanted him to play origin? He's nowhere near that level. Not yet anyway.

He didn’t have a poor season. He had a few average games after one of the most painful injuries you can get in a period where our entire team was getting dominated. Start of the year he was killing it

 

[JC99]

Geez, not long ago Twal was every second WT fans favourite player. How the tables have turned....

Exactly. Recency bias has got a hold of everyone. Fair enough his last couple games weren’t great but let’s not forget he was our second best forward for the first half of the season before injury. Everyone will sing his praises again next year lol

 

[Sart0ri]

If you have trouble getting the ball out wide or your 1 and 9 are not ball players, you need a ball playing lock.

Tigers biggest problem is defence, that's why we have been using a prop with good defence.

Lock is a flexible position that can be used to cover a deficiency.

 

[fibrodreaming]

Top tryscorer was ‘very close’ to signing with Tigers. But the club blew it with a lowball offer

I find the headline very amusing. It's like we were desperate to get him but we were being cheapskates or naive about his true value.

If we did "lowball" AJ it was because we were not that keen to begin with.

I bet we haven't "lowballed" JAC.

 

[Sart0ri]

I hope we are not going to target Rapana if we miss out on JAC.
Upgrading our pack should be our priority. Targeting JAC makes sense because he is quality and players of his class don’t come on the market very often. But if we miss out on him we should be chasing forwards.

Rapana makes sense on a one year deal if we have already signed JAC for 2022 and are still working on a release for 2021. A lot of people seem very confident that JAC is coming to the Tigers.

 

[pawsandclaws1]

Top tryscorer was ‘very close’ to signing with Tigers. But the club blew it with a lowball offer

I find the headline very amusing. It's like we were desperate to get him but we were being cheapskates or naive about his true value.

If we did "lowball" AJ it was because we were not that keen to begin with.

I bet we haven't "lowballed" JAC.

It's a pity, imagine a BJ to AJ to AJ backline move.

 

[avocadoontoast]

I've never been a fan of Tolman at all but I was pretty surprised to see he averaged 140m per game and over 40 tackles. Statistically he would have been our best forward.

He’s always been good for stats problem is whenever he touches the ball the teams entire momentum goes, he slowly goes to the line and takes the tackle rarely offloading. Plays a lot like Gallen In his final few seasons lots of fourth tackle hit ups killing the play lol

I'm not suggesting we sign him but we do need some forwards that make metres and have good defence. Our pack has been monstered 10 weeks straight and whilst Tamou will make some improvements, we need more than 1 player (and the jury is out on Stefano due to limited minutes). Mikaele, Twal had disappointing seasons and Eiso is gone.

We do too much defending and don’t make enough metres. It’s on the pack and our halves to fix that goes both ways I think

Our halves were awful but our forwards were the biggest disappointment imo, especially for the last half of the year. Nowhere near enough metres to be competitive and overall poor defence. I had high hopes for Twal and Mikaele but they both had very poor seasons, Mikaele in particular. Not sure what happened to him.

Injuries affected both those guys. Hopefully Mikaele gets that knee fixed up and after his long layoff Twal didn’t find his form again, prior to that he was up there with the best forwards in the comp.

Pack definitely needs improving and Madge would be hoping Tamou helps not just on the field but off it. If all our forwards can play their best footy it’s a strong team it’s just consistency that always plagues us

Twal was up there defensively but he was never close to one of the best ball runners in the comp. He's been disappointing. We'll see about Mikaele. But if we enter next season as it stands with no new forwards we're going to get smoked every week once again.

Twal doesn’t make damaging runs but he’ll make good metres and find his front. Mikaele showed that he can be very good in a few games this year but overall struggled. Don’t see our pack changing that much as with the rest of the squad it’ll be 2022 where there’ll be major changes

he only ran over 100m 4 times all season. Needs to do better than that.

Whole lot better than our other forwards. He’s the least of our worries he’s proven he can play pretty well and pump out big minutes if need be.

Aloiai was our best middle forward in 2020. Not even close. Eisenhuth was probably second best (which is a worry).

Aloiai had his best year in a tigers jersey this year. Twal was very very disappointing. Hopefully it was injuries and he can deliver what he’s capable of in 2021

I find the critique on Twal harsh. Start of the year everyone wanted him playing origin, a few average games (not even bad) after injury and all of a sudden it’s been a bad year. Recency bias has affected peoples memories I reckon. He still averaged more metres a game than almost all our forwards and is still our best defender.

A starting pack of Aloiai, Tamou, Twal, Luc and Blore will be decent it’s the bench that might be an issue. Musgrove looks decent, Stefano hopefully goes good, Mikaele is inconsistent and McIntyre while looking good is not a numbers guy.

You're a generous marker. He had a poor season. And who wanted him to play origin? He's nowhere near that level. Not yet anyway.

He didn’t have a poor season. He had a few average games after one of the most painful injuries you can get in a period where our entire team was getting dominated. Start of the year he was killing it

He did have a poor season and he’d be the first to admit it.