Regardless of his obvious defensive issues, I agree that re-signing Fonua Pole is an important part to our puzzle moving forward.
There is no doubt the current game heavily revolves around field position and you need players who carry the ball strongly.
Fonua Pole no doubt carries the ball very strongly and there are not a lot of alternate options to replace him if we do lose him.
Being quite young, 23, turning 24y.o in 2027, he is now becoming an experienced NRL player approaching his prime years and surely his defence will start to improve.
KPP again last night showed glimpses of his quality and we all saw that he inntandem with Samuela Fainu gives us a more than competitive edge back row combination.
They are both still improving and I don’t think it’s a realistic option to move either one of them from edge back row on a permanent basis, but there is no doubt we also need more speed and attacking threat across our team, including in our forward pack, which usually comes from somewhere within the back row.
Given that neither KPP or Samuela have what you would call explosive speed, we definately need 1, maybe 2 players off the bench who can add a bit of explosive speed and x-factor to our forward pack.
We have obviously recruited Kurt Mann for one season to try and provide some attacking impetus as an interchange player coming on to play 13, we will also need a plan moving forward from 2028 onwards.
Our halves in 2027 and beyond are obviously our biggest question mark. I think we owe it to our current t 4 main contenders to let them fight it out for our 2 NRL starting positions in 2027 and find out if any of them are going tj be the real deal moving forward.
It could mean the 2027 season is a bit of a trial season for us, but genuine competition and hope could also work in our favour.
As most of our fans agree, the addition of Jake Averilllo should add some much needed speed, class and attacking flair.
The question is, will he alone be enough to turn a bog average boring backline into one that is highly competitive in the week to week NRL grind.
I maintain we need at least one more good quality or potentially good quality outside back to add badly needed competition and depth.
Let’s see what we come up with over the next few weeks.
There is no doubt the current game heavily revolves around field position and you need players who carry the ball strongly.
Fonua Pole no doubt carries the ball very strongly and there are not a lot of alternate options to replace him if we do lose him.
Being quite young, 23, turning 24y.o in 2027, he is now becoming an experienced NRL player approaching his prime years and surely his defence will start to improve.
KPP again last night showed glimpses of his quality and we all saw that he inntandem with Samuela Fainu gives us a more than competitive edge back row combination.
They are both still improving and I don’t think it’s a realistic option to move either one of them from edge back row on a permanent basis, but there is no doubt we also need more speed and attacking threat across our team, including in our forward pack, which usually comes from somewhere within the back row.
Given that neither KPP or Samuela have what you would call explosive speed, we definately need 1, maybe 2 players off the bench who can add a bit of explosive speed and x-factor to our forward pack.
We have obviously recruited Kurt Mann for one season to try and provide some attacking impetus as an interchange player coming on to play 13, we will also need a plan moving forward from 2028 onwards.
Our halves in 2027 and beyond are obviously our biggest question mark. I think we owe it to our current t 4 main contenders to let them fight it out for our 2 NRL starting positions in 2027 and find out if any of them are going tj be the real deal moving forward.
It could mean the 2027 season is a bit of a trial season for us, but genuine competition and hope could also work in our favour.
As most of our fans agree, the addition of Jake Averilllo should add some much needed speed, class and attacking flair.
The question is, will he alone be enough to turn a bog average boring backline into one that is highly competitive in the week to week NRL grind.
I maintain we need at least one more good quality or potentially good quality outside back to add badly needed competition and depth.
Let’s see what we come up with over the next few weeks.
