Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Tom Shines]

Cmon, even at half pace he still blew those two away.

Once the likes of Twal and Seyfarth are 17-21 on the roster, and Sukkar is 30-34, then we might actually have a decent pack.

Looks like he wants to now move them on so they can keep picking Sukkar and Charlie Murray instead

 

[liltiger]

Cooper Cronk in and one of our dud assistants out , it’s that simple , we have not been able to attack properly for years not games years

Imo, I'm telling Hodgo thanks but time to leave, bring Cronk in to work on our attack, then bringing in Matty Johns. The guy is a clown but has on of the best football I.q running around. If I can't get him in to help the halves I'm calling his brother in. Joey has done some really good work with developing halves and their games.

 

[Vicious]

Isn’t the idea to improve the squad ? You can’t keep doing what we are doing now , where there is no depth in the team and we have to bring players that aren’t NRL standard every time there is an injury or make guys like Toa play through it…

We have close to zero depth outside the Top 17 … we had only two players out on Saturday and couldn’t really replace them …

Why not just keep the three you mention as depth?

Well if that’s possible to do and also bring in some genuine NRL talent then yes, that would be ideal.

 

[balmain boy]

Agreed, he kicked so long the chasers gave up 20m from where the ball landed so they took up defensive positions. Benji's instructions, "play it in their half"?
Why didn't Benji get the message to Luai, "not so deep" its not working.
The original game plan needed adjustments as our troops weren't up to it. But no plan B?

The distance was not the problem, it was actually good for a change. You simply can't have kicks being caught on the full at the 20-30m line. That's absolute suicide.
The problem was the kicks aren't high enough for our chasers to get through. Why do our kickers have the lowest kicking game in the comp? Get pat Richards to show them how to put some height into it. Our kickoffs and general field kicks are atrocious, worst in the comp by a long long way.

 

[Tom Shines]

Well if that’s possible to do and also bring in some genuine NRL talent then yes, that would be ideal.

Well … it should be right? How is the team going to improve otherwise …?

They only need 2 more forwards realistically…

 

[Vicious]

Cmon, even at half pace he still blew those two away.

Once the likes of Twal and Seyfarth are 17-21 on the roster, and Sukkar is 30-34, then we might actually have a decent pack.

I can’t disagree with that and I think most of our supporters unanimously agree.
Maybe a bit harsh on a young up and comer such as Sukkar who does have scope for plenty of improvement, but he certainly doesn’t look like he’s ready to make a genuine impact at NRL level just yet.

 

[liltiger]

I think you are missing the point that our defence in particular lacks line speed and lacks aggression due to having a forward pack full of players that make tackles only because they have to, but no intention to hurt the opposition or make a difference.
Ray Stone alone will not make a world of difference, but a player like him could be the starting point in signing a few players who do defend with intent and aggression.
If we were to sign him, I would play him at 9 for the first 20 mins of each game before bringing Api on once the heat of the battle has settled and we would then have the option of using Stone as a 13 and he would likely only play 40-50mins each game just for his aggression factor alone.
As I say we need more aggressive defenders than just him, but he’d be a start and maybe a few of our current players would find the courage to show a bit of line speed and hit a bit harder from playing alongside him.

Spot on, we have a pack of workhorses, guys that will make 30 tackles a game but noone with any mongrel and aggression. I wish we could get 2 forwards who took it personally every week. Went out intentionally to bend the line back and snap the blokes they're tackling. Personally I think Sayfarth and Twal have hit their ceiling. There's no improvement left in them, this is as good as they're getting. We need to be in a position where they are no 25 - 30 on the depth chart then were flying. Atm they're 10 - 15. Lots of work to be done on the squad.

 

[Tom Shines]

Spot on, we have a pack of workhorses, guys that will make 30 tackles a game but noone with any mongrel and aggression. I wish we could get 2 forwards who took it personally every week. Went out intentionally to bend the line back and snap the blokes they're tackling. Personally I think Sayfarth and Twal have hit their ceiling. There's no improvement left in them, this is as good as they're getting. We need to be in a position where they are no 25 - 30 on the depth chart then were flying. Atm they're 10 - 15. Lots of work to be done on the squad.

18-22 is fine … they will still end up playing 10+ games a year

 

[Vicious]

Well … it should be right? How is the team going to improve otherwise …?

They only need 2 more forwards realistically…

Yes the addition of 2 more NRL quality forwards would solve our issues in the forwards.
I think we have a few issues in the backs also.
There are a few players still currently available for 2026 that could help solve those issues too.

 

[tigahhh]

Imo, I'm telling Hodgo thanks but time to leave, bring Cronk in to work on our attack, then bringing in Matty Johns. The guy is a clown but has on of the best football I.q running around. If I can't get him in to help the halves I'm calling his brother in. Joey has done some really good work with developing halves and their games.

problem is i don’t think the club wants to pay their wages

 

[liltiger]

Sone very good points you raise.
That along with the fascination to play injured players who only let us down while playing injured is mind boggling.

This x100. Imo it's obvious To'a, Skelton, Fainu and Pole are playing injured or being hampered by recovering injuries. I never understood shifting 5 players around to fill 2 holes when you could just go and replace like for like from reserve grade, if we never use them what's the point of having a reserve grade squad. Some of the guys won't be up for it so a bad game or 2 is expected, but imo it's infinitely better than constantly fielding injured or hampered players who as we've seen regress in form because they're struggling and just cannot perform. By bringing guys up so the injured players can recover, we expose our reserve grade squad to NRL level football, get the guys exposure to it, letting it bleed to the lower grades and it shows the other reserve grade players there is a path to first grade if they put in.

 

[liltiger]

18-22 is fine … they will still end up playing 10+ games a year

Preferably a bit lower Tom that'll mean the squad is in much better shape than it is now

 

[Tom Shines]

Yes the addition of 2 more NRL quality forwards would solve our issues in the forwards.
I think we have a few issues in the backs also.
There are a few players still currently available for 2026 that could help solve those issues too.

I’m starting to wonder about Toa … they’ll need to make a call soon about retaining him… it looks like he is playing busted which is not doing either the team or him any good … this is like what I was saying earlier … they would rather play him busted because they don’t have any faith that the likes of Naden can fill in adequately for him

 

[balmain boy]

Why the hell haven't our coaches addressed this?

Benji seems to be very much into the "fast footy" gameplan of Sheens and you look at his squad he is actually improving on Sheen's plan....

So why the slow line speed? We have a fast-ish team. Are there slow pokes in the line and Benji is trying to get us to hold the line?? That I would get as we need the line to move together so that gaps don't form... but we need to be quick into the opposition else they get room to move and plan. We had this sorted at the start of the year.

Far too much experimentation going on. Keep it simple.

We have the slowest team in the comp, by a long way. Not oneu are they slow, they're unfit, so can't sprinted more than a couple of times a game either.
The only reason in can gather for our lack of line speed is we're conserving energy as we're not fit enough to play the 80.
Grounds for dismissal really. A lack of pace is on the recruitment team, a lack of fitness is on everyone. Coaches have no excuse

 

[tigahhh]

This x100. Imo it's obvious To'a, Skelton, Fainu and Pole are playing injured or being hampered by recovering injuries. I never understood shifting 5 players around to fill 2 holes when you could just go and replace like for like from reserve grade, if we never use them what's the point of having a reserve grade squad. Some of the guys won't be up for it so a bad game or 2 is expected, but imo it's infinitely better than constantly fielding injured or hampered players who as we've seen regress in form because they're struggling and just cannot perform. By bringing guys up so the injured players can recover, we expose our reserve grade squad to NRL level football, get the guys exposure to it, letting it bleed to the lower grades and it shows the other reserve grade players there is a path to first grade if they put in.

the problem is there isn’t a like for like in reserve grade, that’s the entire issue
as a coach you need to trust what you’re fielding & unfortunately our injured FG players are still better than what’s below
the club has 0 depth & benji/richo already know that, that’s what’s next for the club to improve

 

[Tom Shines]

Preferably a bit lower Tom that'll mean the squad is in much better shape than it is now

I hear you mate … but realistically they probably only bringing in 3 new forwards to the team this off-season so there is only so far they can be pushed down … if it’s more than great 😊

 

[Vicious]

This x100. Imo it's obvious To'a, Skelton, Fainu and Pole are playing injured or being hampered by recovering injuries. I never understood shifting 5 players around to fill 2 holes when you could just go and replace like for like from reserve grade, if we never use them what's the point of having a reserve grade squad. Some of the guys won't be up for it so a bad game or 2 is expected, but imo it's infinitely better than constantly fielding injured or hampered players who as we've seen regress in form because they're struggling and just cannot perform. By bringing guys up so the injured players can recover, we expose our reserve grade squad to NRL level football, get the guys exposure to it, letting it bleed to the lower grades and it shows the other reserve grade players there is a path to first grade if they put in.

💯 there has been plenty of players who have went surprisingly better than expected when given an NRL opportunity over the years.
Either way it’s certainly no good to us as a team when continually playing injured players who are playing extremely poorly because of it.

 

[bigsiro]

Disagree that it has to be (certainly could be). I think defensive coaching and ability are a big factor. Not that they aren't told to get off the line but they lose the collision and wrestle, meaning slow to get back to the line, meaning slow to get off it.

Agree.
Ability is massive - but for whatever reason is deprioritised as the key element determining selection.

Fitness can be raised.

Look, there are lots of fit people. It doesn't make them all capable of doing the job.

All trees are green. But not all green things are trees.

 

[liltiger]

the problem is there isn’t a like for like in reserve grade, that’s the entire issue
as a coach you need to trust what you’re fielding & unfortunately our injured FG players are still better than what’s below

I'm completely the opposite, throw them in the deep end, were not winning the comp this year, give them the exposure and experience.

 

[Vicious]

I’m starting to wonder about Toa … they’ll need to make a call soon about retaining him… it looks like he is playing busted which is not doing either the team or him any good … this is like what I was saying earlier … they would rather play him busted because they don’t have any faith that the likes of Naden can fill in adequately for him

Even Naden on a bad day is better than what To’a has dished up over the past 5-6 weeks.
If they are insistent about not playing Naden then surely Mapapalangi or Luke Laulilli should be the next centre up,
As for Skelton playing injured, why drop Staines after one bad game and 4 very good games if that is the case ?