Signings, Suggestions & Rumours Discussion

[Vicious]

Who is writing this mate ?

This is for 2028 right ? I doubt we could squeeze him in next season ,,

It would be very Wests Tigers like wouldn’t it, paying up around 1 million dollars per season for an ageing and rapidly slowing down prop.
He cannot come up with the magical plays or tackle breaks or line breaks to be someone who can turn games on our favour when we are struggling or in the grind.
Overpay these types of players, not toilers.

 

[Vicious]

Correct ,.they are both more likely to live up to those deals …than Luai his ..

Of course they are both paid actually less now …and you are focused on how much they are going to be paid in the future ,,,

Turuva is a winger only ..pick him there only ,.

There whole attacking game plan centers around putting up a bomb for your man Bula ,,,come up with something different ,

It’s working great, we get a positive result out of 1 in every 10 if we are lucky.
But hey let’s run with that plan of attack for the next 5 years.
If the kicks are in the right area for Skelton we are a much better chance of getting a positive result, but hey let’s pay him peanuts and let him go elsewhere.

 

[Tom Shines]

It would be very Wests Tigers like wouldn’t it, paying up around 1 million dollars per season for an ageing and rapidly slowing down prop.
He cannot come up with the magical plays or tackle breaks or line breaks to be someone who can turn games on our favour when we are struggling or in the grind.
Overpay these types of players, not toilers.

I doubt he is coming here for his swan song..Im surprised they would be making an effort to sign him

 

[Tom Shines]

It’s working great, we get a positive result out of 1 in every 10 if we are lucky.
But hey let’s run with that plan of attack for the next 5 years.
If the kicks are in the right area for Skelton we are a much better chance of getting a positive result, but hey let’s pay him peanuts and let him go elsewhere.

Yep ..Skelton is out of favour … your man Junior might be the replacement

 

[TigerBurnsy]

Yep ..Skelton is out of favour … your man Junior might be the replacement

Idk why Skelton is out of favour, he’s cost us big time this season but so has makasini, tavana and turuva has set the world alight either so why don’t we want to keep him, even only for depth

 

[Vicious]

Yep ..Skelton is out of favour … your man Junior might be the replacement

Put it this way, every team ideally needs a big bodied 100kg plus winger with a decent amount of height, speed and ability, providing they are capable and willing to contest and win a few high balls and providing they make over 150m gained each game, largely from their yardage hit ups.
If you has a combination of Jeral Skelton on approx 250-300k and Junior Tupou on approx 150-200k competing with each other for one wing spot, that is actually very good business and allows you to over spend on potential match winners in other positions.
So neither Skelton or the incoming Junior Tupou are our problem.
I’ve said this 100 times, it is the players on big money taking up a large percentage of our salary cap, but do nothing, or are not capable of coming up with big plays to help win us the right games that are our biggest downfall.
It was like that during our wooden spoons and it seems we are not learning any lessons from it.

 

[colinbh]

It would be very Wests Tigers like wouldn’t it, paying up around 1 million dollars per season for an ageing and rapidly slowing down prop.
He cannot come up with the magical plays or tackle breaks or line breaks to be someone who can turn games on our favour when we are struggling or in the grind.
Overpay these types of players, not toilers.

Skelton is useless.

 

[TigerBurnsy]

Skelton is useless.

If he wasn’t a starter and was at the club as cheap depth he would be good, at least bring him in to make a heap of meters when a winger or 2 is injured

 

[Tom Shines]

Idk why Skelton is out of favour, he’s cost us big time this season but so has makasini, tavana and turuva has set the world alight either so why don’t we want to keep him, even only for depth

It’s been on my “Perplexing decisions list “ all season ,,,

Put it this way, every team ideally needs a big bodied 100kg plus winger with a decent amount of height, speed and ability, providing they are capable and willing to contest and win a few high balls and providing they make over 150m gained each game, largely from their yardage hit ups.
If you has a combination of Jeral Skelton on approx 250-300k and Junior Tupou on approx 150-200k competing with each other for one wing spot, that is actually very good business and allows you to over spend on potential .
I’ve said this 100 times, it is the players on big money taking up a large percentage of our salary cap, but do nothing, or are not capable of coming up with big plays to help win us the right games that are our biggest downfall.
It was like that during our wooden spoons and it seems we are not learning any lessons from it.

You can say it a 100 times …although mostly it’s seeming fixated on two players who won’t even get their pay rises for another 2 years …I would suggest other “big names” are just as much to blame of late …no one apart from AD is doing anything much really

 

[Vicious]

Skelton is useless.

For his contractcvalue which I believe is 250k, he is not supposed to be one of the better players in our team, just someone with a big body, physical presence and ability to make good metres and make tackle breaks.
He nearly always achieves all of that and if he is making too many errors, it is no problem dropping someone on a 250k contract back to Reserve Grade.
Unfortunately the salary cap does not allow any team to have a whole top 17 of high quality players being paid 500k or higher, so you need a few value for money lower paid players to make up your team.
Again these players are not our problem, it is our highly paid players who are not capable of coming up with big plays to help us win games and obviously Doueihi cannot be expected to do it all on his own.

 

[Tim Sheens]

Turuva is a winger only ..pick him there only ,.

Unless he needs to go to fullback. His constantly being shifted, right to left, to centre, back to the right ........... is probably what has pissed me off more than anything this season.

Injuries, sure, but how are the team supposed to strike up any sort of combination when playing as nomads.

 

[Vicious]

It’s been on my “Perplexing decisions list “ all season ,,,


You can say it a 100 times …although mostly it’s seeming fixated on two players who won’t even get their pay rises for another 2 years …I would suggest other “big names” are just as much to blame of late …no one apart from AD is doing anything much really

So how is the big money justified if year after year nobody does anything to help win us games other than Doueihi and when they are playing Sam Fainu or Taylan May ?
In his defence Luai has stepped up a couple of times this season, but I still cannot see 1.2 million of value in him, so I am not disappointed he is leaving us.
As many others have pointed out, Latu Fainu has match winning qualities and we are absolutely destroying his development and progress.

 

[Tom Shines]

So how is the big money justified if year after year nobody does anything to help win us games other than Doueihi and when they are playing Sam Fainu or Taylan May ?
In his defence Luai has stepped up a couple of times this season, but I still cannot see 1.2 million of value in him, so I am not disappointed he is leaving us.
As many others have pointed out, Latu Fainu has match winning qualities and we are absolutely destroying his development and progress.

I’m perplexed by a lot of decisions the coach is making this season ..

I mean ..in the offseason I was basically one of few beating the Latu Fainu drum …most were happy to play different halves …you may have been one of them,,

 

[Speed2burn]

Skelton is useless.

Who are the best wingers at the club?

After the last few weeks I’m not even sure

 

[bigsiro]

Where are the signs that Bula has or ever will live up his 900kk or higher price tag and where are the signs that Turuva has or ever will live up to his 450k or higher price tag ?
Two recently upgraded contracts that are hurting our salary cap balance due tto the players not having the ability to be even close to value of what we are paying them.
We limit our ability to try and recruit any genuine star players when we keep overpaying bog average players.
If we were paying Bula his true value of our 500k and paying Turuva his true value of around 300k, not only would we have the capacity to recruit and sign much better quality players around them, but if they were under performing it would be no big deal to move Bula to the wing or reserve grade and it would be no big deal to drop Turuva to reserve grade like he was at the Panthers before coming to us.

I don’t agree with your take on Turuva.
He was very suspect in defense, but IMO he has been our best, most consistent player since he came to the club. A few games below his par is still better compared with a heap of others. He has just set a very high standard.

 

[Telltails]

I’m perplexed by a lot of decisions the coach is making this season ..

I mean ..in the offseason I was basically one of few beating the Latu Fainu drum …most were happy to play different halves …you may have been one of them,,

He was injured in the off season - his long term injuries have hampered his inclusion. In Benji defence some of our most impressive wins were with Jock - he just can't sustain it in the top grade

 

[Tom Shines]

He was injured in the off season - his long term injuries have hampered his inclusion. In Benji defence some of our most impressive wins were with Jock - he just can't sustain it in the top grade

He has been back from injury a while now ..

We can debate what should have happened in the season up until now ,..but the season is over now and I believe he really should be given a halves spot the rest of the year ..even if that means moving out Luai or AD,,,

I don’t really know how they can make a logical conclusion about his extension value given everyone is still in the dark about his play ..

 

[GNR4LIFE]

He’s worse than both

He’s twice the attacking player Tino is. Tino is proving to be only mildly better than Staines. The Panthers know which players are worth losing and which ones aren’t. That also goes for a certain 5/8 who shall remain nameless.

 

[Telltails]

He has been back from injury a while now ..

We can debate what should have happened in the season up until now ,..but the season is over now and I believe he really should be given a halves spot the rest of the year ..even if that means moving out Luai or AD,,,

I don’t really know how they can make a logical conclusion about his extension value given everyone is still in the dark about his play ..

We have had very little continuity in the halves the whole season and it shows.

 

[Vicious]

I don’t agree with your take on Turuva.
He was very suspect in defense, but IMO he has been our best, most consistent player since he came to the club. A few games below his par is still better compared with a heap of others. He has just set a very high standard.

He is simply not worth 450-500k.
As I say if we were paying him his true value of 300k it would not be a problem as he could be dropped to reserve grade if he was not playing well.
But when you are paying a winger 500k you need superstar qualities, not someone who rips in and has a red hot crack, but does not have the size, speed or ability to do anything special.