Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

In relation to recruitment, we need to be patient. Players always become available at the end of the season once clubs want to re-jig their rosters, coaches get sacked etc.

Every year there are about 10-15 players who are under contract who become available eg. Terrell May, Gutho, Val, AFB etc all at the end of last season.

Theres no need to panic and buy anyone currently off contract just to fill spots. We don't need 3-4 mid tier signings, we need 2 really strong forward signings and a back up half (If Sullivan leaves). If we can sign a top quality lock and good quality bench forward we should have a really strong 17 next season with guys in our current 17 moving into cup and depth roles.
 
Canadian Club said:
In relation to recruitment, we need to be patient. Players always become available at the end of the season once clubs want to re-jig their rosters, coaches get sacked etc.

Every year there are about 10-15 players who are under contract who become available eg. Terrell May, Gutho, Val, AFB etc all at the end of last season.

Theres no need to panic and buy anyone currently off contract just to fill spots. We don't need 3-4 mid tier signings, we need 2 really strong forward signings and a back up half (If Sullivan leaves). If we can sign a top quality lock and good quality bench forward we should have a really strong 17 next season with guys in our current 17 moving into cup and depth roles.
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agreed and a great point when formulating predictive squad lists.

you get the feeling Richardson will leave at least a spot or two free to see what transpires in the offseason.
 
426Tlgerland said:
Didn’t get a chance to, he played a few games and was ok , he needed a chance to play 6 or so games but never got it , and he played in a very shit reserve grade side , very shit
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Yes remember now was playing centre played all right but they released him, I'm happy with Taylan now and Makasini later, if we are going to sign another outside back we would want a better-quality player you would think.
 
diedpretty said:
Wests Tigers have turned their attention to one of the most promising players in Queensland after tying down captain Api Koroisau to a two-year contract extension.
Koroisau was off contract at the end of next season but will now stay with Tigers until the end of 2028, keeping out the clutches of expansion teams Perth and Papua New Guinea.

His retention is a significant vote of confidence for chief executive Shane Richardson and coach Benji Marshall, who consider Koroisau an important piece of the club’s rebuild.

The Tigers made the three-time premiership winner a priority after releasing rising star Tallyn Da Silva to the Eels and with Koroisau now committed to the club, this masthead understands that they have now set their sights on Queensland under-19 five-eighth Javon Andrews.

Apisai Koroisau has re-signed with the Tigers on a two-year contract extension. Picture: Getty Images

Apisai Koroisau has re-signed with the Tigers on a two-year contract extension. Picture: Getty Images
Andrews, on the books at the Gold Coast Titans, starred for the Maroons in their State of Origin win earlier this year after overcoming a serious spinal injury that threatened his future early in his career.

The Tigers have now emerged as a potential home as they look to strengthen their own spine in the wake of Koroisau’s retention and the possible departure of Adam Doueihi, who has a one year offer on the table from the club but is exploring his options elsewhere.

Koroisau’s signature was the priority as the club looked to retain a player who is almost as important for his leadership as he is for his ability. The 32-year-old said he was happy to recommit to the team.

“This club has become family to me,” Koroisau said.

“I’ve felt nothing but support from the players, staff, and especially Benji – he’s someone I really admire and enjoy playing under.

“I’m stoked to re-sign and can’t wait to help lead this team for a few more years.”

Marshall described Koroisau as the “heart and soul” of the team.

“His leadership, experience and energy are invaluable,” Marshall said.

“Having him commit to our future is massive for the direction we are heading in.”

The Tigers have now turned their attention to Maroons U19s five-eighth Javon Andrews. Picture: Getty Images

The Tigers have now turned their attention to Maroons U19s five-eighth Javon Andrews. Picture: Getty Images
The Tigers have been locked in talks with Doueihi over an extension and have tabled a deal believed to be worth around $350,000 a season.

However, it is understood he also has interest from other NRL clubs and is likely to explore them before he commits to the Tigers. The Tigers are also cognisant of the need to keep money aside for next season as they look to re-sign centre Taylan May for next season.

May made a stunning return to the NRL at the weekend, scoring three tries in his first appearance in the top grade for the Tigers. The Tigers will take it slow with May as he continues his recovery from the off-field issues that threatened his career but the early signs are promising and club officials want to make sure they have the space in the salary cap to accommodate May should he maintain his form.

May could soon be joined in first grade but teenager Heamasi Makasini, who turns 18 next week and will immediately come into contention for an a place in first grade.

Makasini, still at high school, has spent the past few weeks in the NSW Cup and handled the step-up with ease. There seems little doubt he will play at some point in coming weeks as the Tigers unveil one of the most exciting talents in the club’s recent history.

Rising star Heamasi Makasini could come into first grade contention when he turns 18 next week. Picture: Warren Gannon Photography
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Javon Andrews was in our pathways as recent as mid-23 in the same CUBS squad as Haywood, Tannous, Luke Laulilii - https://www.weststigers.com.au/news...r-squads-announced-as-nrlw-pre-season-begins/

He was in the same Brisbane talent group for us as Chris Faagutu - https://www.weststigers.com.au/news/2022/05/16/simpkins-journey-inspiring-others/
 
diedpretty said:
Wests Tigers have turned their attention to one of the most promising players in Queensland after tying down captain Api Koroisau to a two-year contract extension.
Koroisau was off contract at the end of next season but will now stay with Tigers until the end of 2028, keeping out the clutches of expansion teams Perth and Papua New Guinea.

His retention is a significant vote of confidence for chief executive Shane Richardson and coach Benji Marshall, who consider Koroisau an important piece of the club’s rebuild.

The Tigers made the three-time premiership winner a priority after releasing rising star Tallyn Da Silva to the Eels and with Koroisau now committed to the club, this masthead understands that they have now set their sights on Queensland under-19 five-eighth Javon Andrews.

Apisai Koroisau has re-signed with the Tigers on a two-year contract extension. Picture: Getty Images

Apisai Koroisau has re-signed with the Tigers on a two-year contract extension. Picture: Getty Images
Andrews, on the books at the Gold Coast Titans, starred for the Maroons in their State of Origin win earlier this year after overcoming a serious spinal injury that threatened his future early in his career.

The Tigers have now emerged as a potential home as they look to strengthen their own spine in the wake of Koroisau’s retention and the possible departure of Adam Doueihi, who has a one year offer on the table from the club but is exploring his options elsewhere.

Koroisau’s signature was the priority as the club looked to retain a player who is almost as important for his leadership as he is for his ability. The 32-year-old said he was happy to recommit to the team.

“This club has become family to me,” Koroisau said.

“I’ve felt nothing but support from the players, staff, and especially Benji – he’s someone I really admire and enjoy playing under.

“I’m stoked to re-sign and can’t wait to help lead this team for a few more years.”

Marshall described Koroisau as the “heart and soul” of the team.

“His leadership, experience and energy are invaluable,” Marshall said.

“Having him commit to our future is massive for the direction we are heading in.”

The Tigers have now turned their attention to Maroons U19s five-eighth Javon Andrews. Picture: Getty Images

The Tigers have now turned their attention to Maroons U19s five-eighth Javon Andrews. Picture: Getty Images
The Tigers have been locked in talks with Doueihi over an extension and have tabled a deal believed to be worth around $350,000 a season.

However, it is understood he also has interest from other NRL clubs and is likely to explore them before he commits to the Tigers. The Tigers are also cognisant of the need to keep money aside for next season as they look to re-sign centre Taylan May for next season.

May made a stunning return to the NRL at the weekend, scoring three tries in his first appearance in the top grade for the Tigers. The Tigers will take it slow with May as he continues his recovery from the off-field issues that threatened his career but the early signs are promising and club officials want to make sure they have the space in the salary cap to accommodate May should he maintain his form.

May could soon be joined in first grade but teenager Heamasi Makasini, who turns 18 next week and will immediately come into contention for an a place in first grade.

Makasini, still at high school, has spent the past few weeks in the NSW Cup and handled the step-up with ease. There seems little doubt he will play at some point in coming weeks as the Tigers unveil one of the most exciting talents in the club’s recent history.

Rising star Heamasi Makasini could come into first grade contention when he turns 18 next week. Picture: Warren Gannon Photography
Click to expand...
Another example of poor journalism,

Taylan scored 1 try in the Top grade and 3 in KOE the week before.

No proof reading of the stories

May made a stunning return to the NRL at the weekend, scoring three tries in his first appearance in the top grade for the Tigers. The Tigers will take it slow with May as he continues his recovery from the off-field issues that threatened his career but the early signs are promising and club officials want to make sure they have the space in the salary cap to accommodate May should he maintain his form
 
Rock Hopper Steve said:
Yes remember now was playing centre played all right but they released him, I'm happy with Taylan now and Makasini later, if we are going to sign another outside back we would want a better-quality player you would think.
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We don’t need more backs we need 3 class forwards

Bula
Turuva
May
Makasini
Skelton
Toa
Stanies
Mason
And and few others we have in nsw cup
We need to spend the big cap space on those 3 forwards and upgrading a few others
 
bptiger 0 said:
We don’t need more backs we need 3 class forwards

Bula
Turuva
May
Makasini
Skelton
Toa
Stanies
Mason
And and few others we have in nsw cup
We need to spend the big cap space on those 3 forwards and upgrading a few others
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I know mate, you read the forum I have said the same thing about or lack of forwards since November with a lot of others on here many times.

Did you notice I said if we are going to sign another outside back, I agree with you, forwards are the priority now.
 
Rock Hopper Steve said:
I know mate, you read the forum I have said the same thing about or lack of forwards since November with a lot of others on here many times.

Did you notice I said if we are going to sign another outside back, I agree with you, forwards are the priority now.
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Assuming we either re-sign and keep Adam Doueihi at 13, or we sign a 13 from somewhere, it would then leave us with middle forwards in Terrell May and either Alex Twal or Fonua Pole starting, one of them on the bench with Sione Fainu, so which one of these players are we dropping to NSW Cup to fit in another established middle forward in ?
Although we were all hoping Royce Hunt would provide some added size, aggression and power ball running which has not eventuated, I wouldn’t say any of the 4 above mentioned players struggle to make decent metres when running the ball.
I think it’s been quite clear it’s our lack of impact on the edges which has been our main problem in the forwards. As pointed out by many, it could be a problem within our structure in how we are or how we are not using our edge forwards, as it cannot be a coincidence that whoever we play there seems to struggle to make an impact.
Samuela Fainu was obviously our player of the year playing on our left edge on 2024, but apart from the Roosters game he has not really made much of impact this season.
There is no doubt Samuela is a quality young player with plenty of improvement to come, but is he best suited to an edge or maybe a move back to the middle where he mostly played as a junior coming through ?
Either way I think it’s quite clear we need someone with a point of difference being speed and footwork on one of our edges, we are virtually the only NRL team who doesn’t have anyone with these attributes on at least one edge,
This being the case and Sanuela potentially moving into our middles rotation with KPP’s arrival on the right and Alex Seyfarth also in the mix for our middles bench rotation, do we really need another high quality highly paid middle, or do we need a high quality edge with speed and footwork and another lower cost depth middle to add competition to the middles we already have ?
In saying all of this and with a recent comment from Josh Kerr that although he really wants to stay with the Dolphins, it does not appear a decent contract renewal is coming from them, therefore he might have to move rather than selling himself short.
Based on his form this season he would be the ideal impact big man we need, but we probably need to find a way to first offload Royce Hunt before we can fit him in,
 
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Vicious said:
Assuming we either re-sign and keep Adam Doueihi at 13, or we sign a 13 from somewhere, it would then leave us with middle forwards in Terrell May and either Alex Twal or Fonua Pole starting, one of them on the bench with Sione Fainu, so which one of these players are we dropping to NSW Cup to fit in another established middle forward in ?
Although we were all hoping Royce Hunt would provide some added size, aggression and power ball running which has not eventuated, I wouldn’t say any of the 4 above mentioned players struggle to make decent metres when running the ball.
I think it’s been quite clear it’s our lack of impact on the edges which has been our main problem in the forwards. As pointed out by many, it could be a problem within our structure in how we are or how we are not using our edge forwards, as it cannot be a coincidence that whoever we plays there seems to struggle to make an impact.
Samuela Fainu was obviously our player of the year playing on our left edge on 2024, but apart from the Roosters game he has not really made much of impact this season.
There is no doubt Samuela is a quality young player with plenty of improvement to come, but is he best suited to an edge or maybe a move back to the middle where he mostly played as a junior coming through ?
Either way I think it’s quite clear we need someone with a point of difference being speed and footwork on one of our edges, we are virtually the only NRL team who doesn’t have anyone with these attributes on at least one edge,
This being the case and Sanuela potentially moving into our middles rotation with KPP’s arrival on the right and Alex Seyfarth also in the mix for our middles bench rotation, do we really need another high quality highly paid middle, or do we need a high quality edge with speed and footwork and another lower cost depth middle to add competition to the middles we already have ?
In saying all of this and with a recent comment from Josh Kerr that although he really wants to stay with the Dolphins, it does not appear a decent contract renewal is coming from them, therefore he might have to move rather than selling himself short.
Based on his form this season he would be the ideal impact big man we need, but we probably need to find a way to first offload Royce Hunt before we can fit him in,
Click to expand...

If Twal was say an 18-21 player next season .., the squad would be looking good …,he will still play plenty of games given injuries and Origin for Terrell …so get a better starting player than he is now … not a fringe first grader

Sam F is the best edge at the club and that won’t change when KPP is here … Sam is 21 , so have some patience ..,he won’t be the finished product for another 3 years
 
Vicious said:
Assuming we either re-sign and keep Adam Doueihi at 13, or we sign a 13 from somewhere, it would then leave us with middle forwards in Terrell May and either Alex Twal or Fonua Pole starting, one of them on the bench with Sione Fainu, so which one of these players are we dropping to NSW Cup to fit in another established middle forward in ?
Although we were all hoping Royce Hunt would provide some added size, aggression and power ball running which has not eventuated, I wouldn’t say any of the 4 above mentioned players struggle to make decent metres when running the ball.
I think it’s been quite clear it’s our lack of impact on the edges which has been our main problem in the forwards. As pointed out by many, it could be a problem within our structure in how we are or how we are not using our edge forwards, as it cannot be a coincidence that whoever we play there seems to struggle to make an impact.
Samuela Fainu was obviously our player of the year playing on our left edge on 2024, but apart from the Roosters game he has not really made much of impact this season.
There is no doubt Samuela is a quality young player with plenty of improvement to come, but is he best suited to an edge or maybe a move back to the middle where he mostly played as a junior coming through ?
Either way I think it’s quite clear we need someone with a point of difference being speed and footwork on one of our edges, we are virtually the only NRL team who doesn’t have anyone with these attributes on at least one edge,
This being the case and Sanuela potentially moving into our middles rotation with KPP’s arrival on the right and Alex Seyfarth also in the mix for our middles bench rotation, do we really need another high quality highly paid middle, or do we need a high quality edge with speed and footwork and another lower cost depth middle to add competition to the middles we already have ?
In saying all of this and with a recent comment from Josh Kerr that although he really wants to stay with the Dolphins, it does not appear a decent contract renewal is coming from them, therefore he might have to move rather than selling himself short.
Based on his form this season he would be the ideal impact big man we need, but we probably need to find a way to first offload Royce Hunt before we can fit him in,
Click to expand...
It's a matter of personal opinion V but I think we could use another quality big man and the ones to miss out add to depth in reserve grade governed by their form plus there is always injuries and yes, I would consider Kerr, as for Hunt if he doesn't put in during the off season he can bugger off.

Interesting someone mentioned they saw Benji chatting to Fifita after the last game is someone smelling smoke, as for lock I think given time Doueihi might show he's up for it if he stays.
 
Tom Shines said:
If Twal was say an 18-21 player next season .., the squad would be looking good …,he will still play plenty of games given injuries and Origin for Terrell …so get a better starting player than he is now … not a fringe first grader

Sam F is the best edge at the club and that won’t change when KPP is here … Sam is 21 , so have some patience ..,he won’t be the finished product for another 3 years
Click to expand...
He and KPP are too similar.
Both good young players with good size, but neither have that explosive speed or footwork we are lacking.
It will be a mistake to have them both playing edge back row at the same time for the full 80 minutes each week. We need more speed on our edges as we are currently a very slow team across the park and it is limiting our ability to make line breaks and score long range tries.
Not Samuela’s fault, just a problem within the balance of the team we keep trotting out.
Same scenario in our centres. The emergence of Taylan May and Makasini is fantastic, but we have To’a on the right who doesn’t have elite speed and cannot tackle.
If we are serious about being a top quality team we let Taylan May, Makasini and Skelton fight it out for our two outside back positions in the left and we find a quality right centre with genuine speed to play inside of Turuva and have Luke Laulilli challenging for a starting spot on the right.
 
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Vicious said:
He and KPP are too similar.
Both good young players with good size, but neither have that explosive speed or footwork we are lacking.
It will be a mistake to have them both playing edge back row at the same time for the full 80 minutes each week. We need more speed on our edges as we are currently a very slow team across the park and it is limiting our ability to make line breaks and score long range tries.
Not Samuela’s fault, just a problem within the balance of the team we keep trotting out.
Same scenario in our centres. The emergence of Taylan May and Makasini is fantastic, but we have To’a on the right who doesn’t have elite speed and cannot tackle.
If we are serious about being a top quality team we let Taylan May, Makasini and Skelton fight it out for our two outside back positions in the left and we find a quality right centre with genuine speed to play inside of Turuva and have Luke Laulilli challenging for a starting spot on the right.
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I'm convinced you don't actually watch the games. To'a is very fast. Samuela is not slow either.
 
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