Stefano Utoikamanu #241

dazza65 said:
Move on. As with that other one last year, dead to me.
I judge good/great players as ones who, through adversity, with hard work and determination and character/will, lift and help drag an underperforming team up to be competitive (eg in our case Api) - he ain't one of those. He is the forward version of a down hill skier.
Focus on retaining guys who bust a gut and can be seen making a difference; Pole, Samuela etc.
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Don't play him again in first grade to this year.
Reserve is all he deserves
 
As much as I’m disappointed he’s leaving, he’s not worth the money that’s being thrown around for him. Maybe in a better environment he’ll achieve better form, but for the tigers it hasn’t happened.

The one thing we can’t do is crap the bed and overpay for a player, then screw our cap for years to come. Richo is an experienced administrator who’s won a few premierships, so I trust he knows what he’s doing. It will take time but he’ll get there as he’s always done.

One other thing - you can’t have players here that don’t want to be here. It’s bad for the group.
 
bptiger 0 said:
I blame all this on Richo , he came here as the big white hope and what have got bugger all . And here’s why we told blore he was free to leave because of his injured pass , SO what do we do trade him for a one legged centre , so who came out on top from that deal RICHO
We then tell papa he can go too , if I am stepho I would thinking things are going south .
Then we realise Bateman , for me that would be the straw which broke the camels back .
This part I have no idea if it happened, but if I was CEO , before letting everyone walk I would have called a meeting and invited our new half back to speak about how changes next year will bring a different outcome. I would have laid out who we were chasing to strengthen the side , little things came make a big difference.
But all Richo and benji have done is weaken the team , I think him leaving will tigger a landslide of players wanting out
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Yes, a little annoying but props don’t win you games. Stafsno was unhappy well before richo got here. We now have a load of cash to buy someone who wants to come.
 
Kelce68 said:
People don't hate Stefano.

People are tired of an experienced player and a pack leader shirking his responsibility in the side, then taking the first train out of town.

It's not Stef making desperate cover tackles in defence or chasing kicks in the 78th minute.

It's young players like Galvin, Samuela and Pole.

If Stef had half the desperation during his time here, Tigers' fans would have nothing but adoration for him.

Easy option on the field, now easy option off the field.
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Shouldn't guys like Klemmer, Papali'i, Bateman and Twal be pack leaders?
Paps took the frist train out as well
Bateman did too
Twal has been given permission to leave but no one wanted him
Klemmer... the less said the better.

We can't always just keep blaming players. We are clearly not giving them the support they get elsewhere.

The common denominator is the club. Many of the guys who make it to the top 1% of the profession don't have issues with doing it the hard way but the writing is on the wall that doing it the hard way isn't going to get you anywhere.

He has another guy called Luke Brooks ahead of him who stayed with the Tigers for 10 years and got nowhere.

He asked for the option and the club gave it to him. It's on the club, not him. If the option wasn't there, he may have only signed on for 2 years or he may have signed elsewhere, then he is not a cat?

Completely understand that he didn't play well last 2 months but we can't be shitting on the guy who did what Galvin, Pole and Fainu etc are doing now for 2 years before that and often without support.

Stef isn't what we need at 800K and we are not what Stef needs. He probably took a pay cut to go elsewhere, that's not taking the easy way out in my books.
 
Well it’s official he’s going
I’m not to disappointed as he is playing very very poorly and will take a bit to get some solid form up .
we could not afford to keep him while he recovers form , he had left us long ago anyway .
where will he Go , my tip storm but not on $ 800.k my prediction
Storm on $ 650 x 3 years

Now Richo needs to pull his finger out and start signing players as it was him who pulled the contract offer on AFB.
Richo we now need 2 props , 1 back rower , 1 lock , 1 centre , 1 wing
good luck
 
I would drop him for the rest of the season from all grades.
If he is no longer interested in us.
Then show him the same.
We are no longer interested in him. Let him go know.

In other words, I'm a firm believer in when a player tells me he has no further interest in my club, then I have no further interest in him, he could be a destabilising factor in influencing the other NRL players within the Club.

So I would want those possibilities removed from my Club, and all my other players protected from this possibility.
We will still have to pay him out at the end of the season, so it's not going to cost us any more, But we will have all this over & done with, it's called peace of mind. But if we play him and in the next month or so, and we win the spoon, but in 3 or 4 of those last games, Stef's missed numerous tackles and had only a few hitups
then it will be in our minds that he SHAFTED US, SO WE WIN SPOON. ????
 
Even though we’ve been “rebuilding” for the last decade, the real rebuild hasn’t even started yet. It won’t start until Benji is gone.
 
Dennisspicer1 said:
I would drop him for the rest of the season from all grades.
If he is no longer interested in us.
Then show him the same.
We are no longer interested in him. Let him go know.

In other words, I'm a firm believer in when a player tells me he has no further interest in my club, then I have no further interest in him, he could be a destabilising factor in influencing the other NRL players within the Club.

So I would want those possibilities removed from my Club, and all my other players protected from this possibility.
We will still have to pay him out at the end of the season, so it's not going to cost us any more, But we will have all this over & done with, it's called peace of mind. But if we play him and in the next month or so, and we win the spoon, but in 3 or 4 of those last games, Stef's missed numerous tackles and had only a few hitups
then it will be in our minds that he SHAFTED US, SO WE WIN SPOON. ????
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Nah id flog him for 80mins every game till the end of the year. No rest.
 
jirskyr said:
No I'm not being entirely facetious.

A million for Luai is fine, he's a top-tier half and they are hard to come by. But a million for a middle-range prop... no. Why can't you have 2 x half-million props who just get a basic job done? That's the way everyone used to fill their forward pack.
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To your point, he is a 35-50 minute prop and he is asking for 80-90% of what Haas, the fittest and one of the best props in the game is asking for. He just doesn't provide that value.

Fair enough if he made his tackles and regularly broke the line, but he's just not there.

Good luck to anyone that wants to load that much cap space into him.

Frankly, Sione Fainu has been going just as good if not better.
 
weststigers said:
To your point, he is a 35-50 minute prop and he is asking for 80-90% of what Haas, the fittest and one of the best props in the game is asking for. He just doesn't provide that value.

Fair enough if he made his tackles and regularly broke the line, but he's just not there.

Good luck to anyone that wants to load that much cap space into him.

Frankly, Sione Fainu has been going just as good if not better.
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I agree and I think ESPECIALLY given the recent form of guys like Sam and Sione Fainu, Rueben Porter etc. Guys who are no-frills but are enthusiastic, play with energy and don't appear to have hit their ceiling.

I think Sione Fainu is an interesting case study, because he's already 23 and he's been on the books for a few years, so we have clearly put the effort in with him. And now in 2024 he's not only played pretty well, but scored 2 tries from almost standing starts, the kind of explosive power and tenacity that players like Klemmer and Stefano just don't have. It can't be as simple as "well his brothers are here now".

There are comments in the Benji thread about how players are not improving. But I disagree, I think some players are definitely improving and that is almost entirely centred around the juniors. I don't have an explanation for why, why most of our senior players (Api excluded) are simply not performing anywhere near the level required. I would consider it entirely reasonable to expect that senior players perform to a certain level without having to be specifically coached, and then part of your focus is bringing the juniors up to scratch.

Like my 3 kids - two of them are old enough to feed themselves, shower themselves... I'm not supposed to have to follow them around the house reminding them to wipe their arses and wash their hands. I'm supposed to be focusing on the little one. BUT if the "experienced" kids aren't behaving to the level their age would presuppose, then of course the whole shebang goes to hell.
 
WesternSuburbsBoy said:
There is no way Richo is to blame for any of this. Who inserted these dumb clauses into his contract was it Richo? Who assembled the weakest roster in the competition this season was it Richo? Everyone been carrying on about Bateman & Papa being overpaid duds then Richo gets rid of them now people are crying wolf. Pascoe, Lee & Sheens have set this club back years what don't people understand everyone sooking about Benji who appointed him was it Richo?
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Fair points you raised, i remember in one of Richos first interviews he said Stephanies contract was one of the most ridiculous he had ever seen
 
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