Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

BAGNF05 said:
I’ll agree he improved in 2024, still needs to improve more, particularly discipline and errors.
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imo he got his head around discipline errors .coach told him he be gone if he didnt,.Now he just needs to realize he can bully his way thru the line,
 
Merlot said:
imo he got his head around discipline errors .coach told him he be gone if he didnt,.Now he just needs to realize he can bully his way thru the line,
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He needs to strip his game right back because he’s uncoordinated. His MO needs to be hit hard and legal, and run hard (offload if it’s on). No fancy crap.

Bellyache gave Blore the same role this year.
 
kade7 said:
apologies if already posted

believe kobe shared with madge that he would like to leave the broncos yesterday, broncos holding firm, see how the hunt saga plays out could work to our favour
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I’m happy to work as a mediator on this deal. We offer Bateman & pay 50% of his freight and Broncos release Hetherington now. Broncos win, Bateman wins & we get our man.
 

I wrote the story that ended Terrell May’s Roosters career … and there’s more to it​

Adrian Proszenko​

Chief Rugby League Reporter
November 7, 2024 — 3.50pm

Apparently, I have blood on my hands.

The Roosters have told Terrell May to move on while the ink is barely dry on his contract extension and recent accounts suggest it’s got nothing to do with the club’s salary cap situation, their need to cover for injured stars Sam Walker and Brandon Smith or the surplus of forwards they have on their books.

No, evidently the reason the Roosters are marching May towards the exit relates to an interview I conducted with him at Kensington’s Bar Lucio in mid-August, and the story that was subsequently published by this masthead on the eve of the finals about a month later.

Over the course of an hour, May offered up his life story. Sharing it was a chance to give the fans a rare insight into why his relationship with rugby league has been a complicated one.
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May initially played football to please his father, then because his siblings Taylan and Tyrone – who both played at NRL level before running into off-field dramas – were good at it. Because football provided a better life to a family that struggled to put food on the table while growing up in housing commission lodgings in Mount Druitt. Because there were teachers who overlooked him for the school footy team and told him he would never amount to anything. Because of the scrutiny the game put on his family. Because there were other things he was also passionate about, like again working in the disability sector. Because he wants to be his own man.
Terrell May is cut from a different cloth to most in rugby league.

Terrell May is cut from a different cloth to most in rugby league.CREDIT: LOUISE KENNERLEY SMH

“I hate getting compared to my brothers, we’re all different,” he told me.

At times, it became too much; on two occasions, at the age of 18 and 20, he walked away from the game, revealing, “I just didn’t want to play any more”.
“It’s a weird feeling. I don’t think many people experience it where one week they love the game and go on the TV screens and the next week they don’t want to be there at all,” May said at the time.

“Sometimes I just feel I could quit, like in a day. It sounds a bit weird, but I get those thoughts sometimes where I’m just like, ‘Is this really for me? I’m very grateful to be where I am and play with the Roosters, but rugby league isn’t the whole of me’.

“Then you just look at the bigger picture. You need to support your family and I couldn’t do it without footy. I have aspirations to take the club to the grand final and to play for NSW.”

Of all of the conversations I’ve had with footballers for over a quarter of a century, this was one of the most candid. Sadly, given the fallout, maybe fans can expect less of it in the future.

May’s sentiments have been seized upon as the reason he has been tapped on the shoulder. There has also been a narrative pushed that there were cultural reasons for the decision, prompting him to post on his Instagram account: “Nothing to do with off-field stuff.”

Neither explanation holds water. There is nothing the Roosters would have read about May that they didn’t know already.

There is no doubt May is different. The 25-year-old has a quirky sense of humour, one the public rarely sees. When Herald photographer Louise Kennerley asked to take a photo of him without his bum bag, he politely declined because he wanted to be seen as his authentic self. He’s also abstained from social media for long periods over concerns about how he will be portrayed.
“That’s just the way I am, all the boys know I just mock everything and I take nothing serious,” he said.

‘I just mock everything and I take nothing serious’
Terrell May
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“I forget there are all these cameras now. It’s hard because I try to be myself on the camera as well, but it just doesn’t work out. It just always gets me in trouble, so just trying to stay away from that stuff.”

Suggestions he’s failed a character test at the Roosters are also off the mark. At a time when the club got heat for handing lifelines to Matt Lodge, Brandon Smith and Michael Jennings – each arrived at Bondi Junction hauling considerable baggage – May has given the club no cause for concern.

Indeed, such has been May’s rise that he played all 27 games for the Roosters this season, including an 80-minute performance at prop. If he wasn’t fully committed to rugby league, he wouldn’t have embarked on an off-season tour to England, to represent Samoa, while his wife was pregnant. He wouldn’t have been crowned the Rugby League Players’ Association inaugural impact player of the year if he wasn’t committed.

RELATED ARTICLE​

Terrell May

Analysis​

NRL 2025​

Terrell May played every game last season. So why are the Roosters showing him the door?​

Further, it makes little sense for the Roosters to be badmouthing a player when they’re trying to get another club to buy him.

So how did we get here?
The truth is that the Roosters roster is forward heavy, as evidenced by young gun Siua Wong struggling to crack first grade for most of last season.

May’s style of play, viewed internally as being less compatible with the team’s future direction, coupled with holes in the roster that need filling, have conspired against him. Unfortunately for May, it has made him the player most dispensable.

On the cusp of Origin selection, May has plenty to offer and will ultimately find he fits in better somewhere else. The next chapter will only add to one of sport’s most intriguing stories. We shouldn’t be discouraging him from telling it.
 
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LeichhardtTiger said:
Well, whoever put this together is either on the grog or an idiot: Turuva and Luke L are listed as Fullbacks, Samuela as a Prop, and Skelton as a Centre! Bud and our multimillion $$ marquee player are both listed as 5/8s. There is no player shown as halfback! How bloody hard is it to get things done right the first time?
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The NRL manages all of this, the club has little say.
 
crazycat said:
Nah

I know people think that. But it's the wrong viewpoint.

You need 1 halfback and 1 player that can play halfback with maybe another at a pinch.

5/8 in the reserve grades can go to a center, fullback or whoever. really you should not care that much in lower grades.
Heck lower grades people should try different positions, even get experience outside their preferred position to understand what the other positions expect. i.e. a good center learns a bit by occasionally playing wing and understanding what being left high and dry on a 2 vs 1 overlap means.
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Nah, that's the wrong viewpoint. If you've got crap halves that can't organise the attack and kick well then the whole team is stuffed. Sure you can rotate outside backs or props and second type to an extent but you need proper halves in the halves. You look at any successful team in any grade and they have good halves.

And you don't just settle for having 1-2 prospects, you needs prospect in every grade.
Look at our halves in cup and flegg last season. Sure you can rotate Naden in, and it may work once or twice, but in the end you've got no real attack, just luck. Having Ryan, Naden, Valevatu, Teaupu etc playing so much just shows how little we value quality. Sure Sullivan should have stood up, but he's a cat.
 
Sione Fainu & Terrell May would be enough, I think, to put the Tigers in a position to be better than last season.

8. May
9. Koroisau
10. Klemmer
11. Sam Fainu
12. Seyfarth
13. Sione Fainu

14. Da Silva
15. Pole
16. Hunt
17. Twal

The club really would need someone to claim that #13 spot. Sione, Pole, Bird, Matamua, Kit Lualili'i... & at the same time, some position flexibility from the likes of Sione Fainu, Kit, Matamua to also play 2nd Row.

I know there will be a few people here that will claim that this would be a weak pack. But Hunt & May add a certain amount of muscle the club lacked last season. Matamua, Kit or Twal could play a role as the generic tackle machine at #13 and be effective- at least something similar to what Kobe Hetherington adds.

For mine, the club improves on the back of the ability to not get physically dominated.

Toby Rudolph, if an extra spot becomes available, could also play that #13 role & again, improves our physicality.

The one option that does not improve the physicality in the middle? Jack Bird.
 
Needaname said:
If Bateman has gone. You can bet your better dollar Bird will be our right side backrower. Talk of playing him at lock is just fantasy.
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Calling it fantasy is a stretch. Its very much a possibility.

It will be interesting to see where he does end up playing. With Hetherington staying at the Broncos it opens the door for him to play lock with Latu off the bench. However, like you have alluded to, our right edge is bare, so we may be forced to play him there.

Personally I would be looking at our most mobile middles and experimenting with them in that edge in the preseason. Fonua Pole would probably be the only mobile middle I wouldnt try, as his arm grabbing in defence would be exposed even more on an edge. Sione would be the most likely to be a success there IMO.
 
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