Have you been asleep the past few years?
Papali’i, Galvin, Tallyn all walked away from contracts. The club moves players on under contract as well.
In the NRL, contracts don’t mean a thing.
There’s some movement on at the moment that Polynesians have this incredible culture. All this talk of the rise of Samoa and Tonga and their future successes. I’ve seen two highly regarded players this off season suggest one of them will be in next years World Cup final.
It has been widely suggested that our club will embrace this rise and it will shape our identity moving forward. Benji is onboard. That’s the boys club I’m theorising about.
Yea, well a few things:
Samoan boys may stick together and Tongan boys may stick together. Sometimes they both may stick together but that's kinda like Aussie's hanging with Brits.
plus Charlie Staines was half Samoan and he seemed to be kicked to the curb pretty quickly without fuss.
I reckon Luai was ok with him being kicked because he wasn't putting the effort in.
Look I get it, if the culture turns to a Lazy boys culture... Were in trouble. Mainly because it's two families that make up 4 of our best players.
At the moment, IMHO it's working. We recruited Latu, his brothers have put in more then him. We recruited Terrell, Taylan seems to be an answer in the centers.
Yes, they may all want to stick together. Well we hired sets of families and we brought this in. No other recruit has outshone them IMHO, Hunt? Bird? Duds.. Klem/Paps/Bateman were largely underperforming.
Double down on culture, Pick your Tongan/Samoans but pick players known for high work effort. Create an islander culture where everyone plays for their mates.
I can't see any other way were going to outperform the other sides.