Suli and Leilua are interesting topics of conversation.
Yes both have had issues with being labelled lazy trainers and backing that up with lazy on field displays during their career and yes both are unwanted by the Dragons who have only just won their first game of the season.
However anyone who has watched all of the Dragons games this season will tell you they have generally been in their top 3 players each time they have played.
When on their game they are both extremely powerful and aggressive ball runners who can rapidly swing momentum in their teams favour.
I aim not sure about Suli’s current fitness levels, but he has not been dropped from NRL in a long time, so playing under a hard task master in Shane Flanagan, you would assume he no longer has the poor attitude and fitness issues he had in his younger days.
Luciano Leilua come into this season ripped and fitter than he has ever been.
It’s probably unlikely we show any interest in either of them and even if we did, their cost probably rules us out, but if we are being fair dinkum, both would improve our top 17 if they were on our books.
Although totally opposite types of players, I would personally prioritise Jake Averillo ahead of Suli, but Suli is 100 miles ahead of the likes of To’a and Herbert or even Turuva or Makasini as a centre at this stage of their careers.
Luciano would not start in our back row ahead of Samuela Fainu or KPP, but all full strength I reckon he would be very beneficial tj is potentially starting at 13 moving Twal to starting prop, or as an interchange impact forward. The big bonus would be him being a great replacement edge back rower when we have injuries such as we do with Samueka at the moment.