If you may remember Richo would talk about " shaking some trees and see what falls out " .....I was just using the term as a joke
And I would imagine that Benji would seek Richo for advice or connections to help with recruitment
I don't imagine Mielecamp has the same connections Richo had , not knocking Shaun at all... but he is far less experienced NRL wise
It’s not rocket science like sone make it out to be.
It’s up to the R&R team at each club to work out what positions they are looking at and what their budget is.
Send that information to all the player managers and have private discussions with all the player managers they have a good association with about what players are likely to become available
Their job is made easier by all the media reports and innuendo about players that are still contracted, but likely to be surplus to requirements as well as the ones that are contracted, but supposedly want out such as today’s report about Jordan Riki.
This does not require experience, but they need to be alert to all the rumours, have a good relationship with as many player managers as possible and most importantly have a bit of common sense.
Benji has made it well known in the past while our previous CEO was at the helm, that he did not want it respect the opinion of a recruitment manager he is not close with and does not trust, so he was give power to make all these decisions himself with the assistance of Shannon Gallant.
So Benji now has exactly what he wanted, so any failure in the recruitment and retention space falls solely on him.
In Benji’s defence he has obviously recognised our backline is far too slow and lacks quality on the right, so has recruited Jake Averillo to try and help fix this problem.
Hopefully Benji is now aware that Jake Averillo alone is not enough and is in the process of signing another quality outside back to increase competition for positions and our depth.
Benji was smart enough to realise we need more depth at 9 and has recruited a tough tackling experienced player in Jayden Brailey.
Benji would also be well aware of our emerging younger players who should all be another year older, wiser and better in 2027, so it’s a juggling act as to how many of our emerging players will be genuine NRL contenders or depth in 2027 and how many more recruits are required.
Benji wanted to be in charge of all of this, so now it’s up to his judgement to get it right.
