Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

BlackWhiteGold said:
Some excerpts on Tyrone McCarthy's background for NSW Cup coach ...

- 18-time Ireland international, now 36yo.

- Born in Warrington, he came through the ranks with his hometown club to make 43 senior appearances for the Wolves. Lifting the Challenge Cup in 2009 with the Wire, McCarthy went on to play for Salford Red Devils, Leigh – then Centurions -, Wakefield Trinity, Hull KR and Swinton Lions as well as spending time Down Under with St George Illawarra Dragons.

- Following his retirement from the game in 2021, McCarthy joined Warrington’s youth development team as scholarship head coach and assistant for the club’s academy and reserve sides.

- Was Pathways Coaching Director for the Rabbitohs in 2024.

- This season was Rabbitohs Pathways Skill Acquisition Coach.
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Doesn’t fill me with confidence outside of the line re working with Benji on player development plans and into the lower grades.
 
BlackWhiteGold said:
It looks like he actually finished up with the Rabbitohs back in January. Maybe not part of the Bennett regime.

Found this he posted on Linkedin recently ...

In January, I took on the role of coaching the South Eastern Seagulls’ U21s and A-Grade teams and I also began a new role with the Clontarf Foundation, running one of their awesome academies.

While the A-Grade season wasn't as fruitful as we’d hoped, strong foundations have been laid. Compounded by the performance of our U21s, who went through the season undefeated, claiming both the minor premiership and the Grand Final in the NSW Sydney Metro competition.
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So he didn’t have the ability to build and coach a team that could win the South Sydney A Grade competition in 2025, but we are trusting him to build and coach a team good enough to play finals in NSW Cup ?
Let’s hope there is more to him than his resume suggests.
 
innsaneink said:
AOB bulldogs attack coach
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Can imagine how the bulldogs deciding on this went.

“So I think we had a pretty solid year, ended up as the best defensive team of the year so would should probably look at bolstering our attack. Now we bought Galvin who is the most talented teenager Gus here has ever seen. Also Gus we are working hard on a meeting so you can meet him for the first time soon. Anyway, now some people say this didn’t improve our attack and we actually ended up scoring over 5 points less per game on average with him in the team but that’s fake news and it’s obviously everyone else around hims fault. So anyone have some ideas how we can improve our attack?”

“How about we sign the coach who just got sacked from the team who won the wooden spoon and has scored the least amount of points over the last 2 years combined to be our attacking coach”

“Well I guess we’ve made worse decisions before and his manager is a top class person so let’s do it”.
 
Vicious said:
So he didn’t have the ability to build and coach a team that could win the South Sydney A Grade competition in 2025, but we are trusting him to build and coach a team good enough to play finals in NSW Cup ?
Let’s hope there is more to him than his resume suggests.
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Thats what a part time gig gets ya i guess
 
Needaname said:
What’s his actual ‘coaching’ resume?
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Exactly. I have to say I'm totally underwhelmed by both this appointment and the new NRLW coach. We're told where they've been but not what they've done when they were there. McCarthy's playing career is very average and there's no successes evident in his coaching career. This has the smell of failure attached to it.
 
Buttface said:
I’m not quite sure what you’re saying in the first bit but the second bit yeah at the moment Bula has football skills that lean towards fullback, and you could watch him run all day, but yeah can we and he develop into a top line fullback is the question we hoping gets answered this season bcoz we’re paying good coin and if he ain’t gunna get any better we need to re-balance the equation. I reckon he’ll get better at it, I just don’t think he’s ever gunna be another ball player it there.
Still we could work his and the teams game around getting him more space.
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I'm saying:

Beggars can't be choosers. By that I mean:
We have Bula and a chance at resigning him.
We don't have a chance at signing Mitchell Latrell or Dylan Edwards (as far as I can tell) or Kennedy for 350k.

Now, I am not knocking Bula, the guy has talent. Several games he was our only dangerous player bar Api.

But he has to participate in organising our defense and get that game management side. It's a hard skill, I am glad we have Hodgson on staff as he knows the role. Although that wasn't his strongest point as FB when he played.

Bula is who we have. Makasini and others haven't really shown that they would be a better fullback. Bula is Decent and good, without yet being Great. Coaching staff you have your work cut out for you.
 
Not entirely sure where to post but looks like we’ve locked up Caitlin Turnbull for our NRLW team until 2029. Good signing for our girls as she’s had a great year capped off with a hat-trick in the PMs XIII and multiple awards at the awards night. So the NRLW off-season signings are off to a great start with McGregor and Turnbull. Hopefully more to come 🤞 .
 
Don't think we'll be in any rush to sign roster spots 29/30 until more branches are given a good shake.

Our next announcement may well be who our pre-season train & trial squad of usually 6-8 will be in addition to our development contracted players with training starting in less than 3 weeks.

Maybe we could hear about a possible release or 2 (alluding to Bird), hopefully a few extensions (Sione, Jeral etc) & maybe something official about Bud being released.
 
tiny must’ve dropped out of playing for Samoa, not in the team list at all

edit: nvm apparently injured at oztag 😢
 
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