The signing of Bateman by Sheens is his worse signing ever,even more so than his Blair and Anasta signings.I will always be thankful for 2005 but you can't live on that forever.
This makes me start thinking about who the outright worst signing since 2012 might be. There are an awful lot of contenders, but my shortlist is:
Adam Blair
Probably the player we got most out of on this list, in the sense that he was at least a functional first grade standard footballer. It's what he represents that gets him in the list: the beginning of the realisation that the 2010-11 window was the end of something not the start. After the injuries to Dwyer and Lawrence, and to a lesser extent Moltzen, and with Ellis and Tuqiri increasingly injury prone, it was critical that we signed well to maintain momentum. Maybe if we had we could have built a bridge to the next generation. Maybe then we'd have kept at least one of Moses or Tedesco and had something to build around. Instead we got this clown.
Braith Anasta
And also this one. He gets a tick up for at least being cheap, but a massive tick down for being the most aggressive post-exit shitter on the club. I'm sorry you had to bring your own tape and Gatorade, princess. Perhaps if you'd bothered to have a look round before taking the money offered you'd have realised that there was a job of work involved that you were going to consider beneath you. If he's not the worst signing of the lot he's certainly the most pea hearted.
Matt Ballin
I know I'm meant to preface this with the inevitable "not his fault, but..." but seriously, f- Matt Ballin. I don't care how great a clubman he was at Manly - he did dick for the Tigers except help the worst coach in living memory force out our second greatest player of all time. In return for which we got three games in two years and desperate attempts to defend Matt McIlwrick as a legitimate first-grade hooker.
Josh Reynolds
I could more or less repeat the first sentence above. One in a long line of effort players who was going to turn round the club's culture single handed yet mysteriously arrive and suck up a healthy pay cheque while either barely getting on the park or being completely anonymous. The really embarrassing thing about Reynolds is that everyone with any sense knew in advance that signing him for four years on top dollar was a dreadful idea. He premiered what's now known as the "Isaiah Papali'i Gambit", ie making it pretty clear after signing for us that he didn't really want to leave his previous club and was only doing so for the money, then doing nothing to justify that money. 7.1 games a season for three years.
Chris McQueen/Russell Packer joint award
Impossible to separate this pair of oxygen thieves. Proof positive that just because a club has some cap room for the first time in half a decade doesn't necessarily mean there will be players on the market that cap money would be well used on. Packer averaged eight games a year for the Tigers, comfortably ahead of McQueen's three, but I don't think I can remember two things the pair of them did on the field between them. We might as well have given the money to Tim Simona and asked him to pick up some sporting merchandise.
BJ "Joseph" Leilua
On the up side, I only had to spend about 20 minutes trying to pretend I didn't think this prick was a waste of skin.
Oliver Gildart
Would be up there with Anasta as a post-Tigers moaner except no-one on earth cares what Oliver Gildart has to say about anything. His mum probably keeps him on read.
John Bateman
If not the worst signing, certainly the one that absolutely everyone knew was a bad idea before it happened (feel free to search my post history if you like - I hated this signing at the time and absolutely everything I said about it came to pass). Giving a nearly 30 year old small back row forward with a history of shoulder injuries and a bad attitude a
four year deal is about as close to gross negligence as an NRL head coach and administration can get.
There are plenty of other poor signings that don't quite rise to this level as they were either for relatively little money (Zane Musgrove, Robert Jennings, Robbie Rochow), at least didn't hurt us for very long (Ryan Matterson, Eddy Pettybourne, Moses Suli) or where I feel they did just about enough on the field not to rise to this level of grim (Ben Matulino, Joel Reddy, James Tamou). Interested to hear if anyone thinks any others reach hall of fame level.
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