Taupau and Blair versus our back row.

[pHyR3]

we made the right decision re taupau. this is where it stood as far as i am aware.

he had a contract with us for this year but there was no way we could've managed manly's offer for 2017\. so he asked for a release (or we asked him to go) simply because there is no point in us having him in the squad and keep people like lovett, siro, ava etc. (who we thought would be the future) from the squad.

DEFINITELY, i was gutted at the time but within a few weeks it was clear we made the right call

what was he asking?? 650k??? get outta here, if some stupid team thinks a 40-50min attacking forwarding is worth that than thats fine, marty gets a big paycheck and we can spend that on a half or two solid second rowers.

his defence was always average to above average. and his discipline was quite poor

 

[tig_prmz]

in saying that though, i would readily trade him for all 4 people we have on the bench currently. our bench is probably the weakest in the comp, compared to 2013/14 when we had taupau, ava, gavet and sue CHARGING ON.

 

[newtiger]

We should have played hard ball with Manly, saying if you want Marty in 2016 give us Liam Knight otherwise go blow bubbles.

 

[Russell]

I'm guessing the club saw it as a chance for some cap breathing space, either for the Farah debacle or to pay forward some cash for one of our young stars

Exactly - plus the fact that it is very rare for a player signed somewhere else the following year to give his all. Especially when he is a mercenary. He even turned it up the last games of 2015.

 

[Magpie_Magic]

I'd rather keep Taupau and release Sironen and Lovett.

And keep Blair who had very good last year with us offloading to Tedesco running through middle and release Lawrence and Halatau.

And Cherrington and Ballin can go as well.
See with Tapau Blair and Thompson we had 3 guys who were internationals and rarely missed a game. Watching Tapau and Burgess go at it last week and seeing Taupau smash Burgess force an error and nearly won the game for Manly missing many players

 

[Demps]

Taupau is no good.
XXL Matai, will spend most of his career suspended or injured.
No loss to us.

Blair, he's going alright at the Broncos.
Seems like a nice bloke.
As stated, he's a cog in a machine and responds well to being a bit part player.
We wanted more from him and he couldn't deliver.

Both bad fits for our team.
What we've got at the moment is OK and hopefully some good recruitment will see us solidify ourselves as a top 4 pack.

 

[goldcoast_tiger]

I'd rather keep Taupau and release Sironen and Lovett.

And keep Blair who had very good last year with us offloading to Tedesco running through middle and release Lawrence and Halatau.

And Cherrington and Ballin can go as well.
See with Tapau Blair and Thompson we had 3 guys who were internationals and rarely missed a game. Watching Tapau and Burgess go at it last week and seeing Taupau smash Burgess force an error and nearly won the game for Manly missing many players

It's almost laughable that Sironen and Lovett could be preferred over anyone. But that's our club for you
As for Tapau, he's going well according to every one , except some on here who want to hold a grudge about him leaving for a better offer.

But our "retention" policy is alive and well. Ours is a popgun pack and will stay like it until we get some money into the club.
Sue typifies us , tries hard, has a good game occasionally, then goes missing for a few weeks.yet he's held up here by some, as some sort of enforcer of the pack.
Got to be kidding. Mediocrity is alive and well.

 

[ricksen]

I had no issue with letting Austin and TMM go as we had invested in someone else in their position (Moses).
We don't have any real backrowers of FG quality at this stage (I'd rather Sue play in the prop rotation), so the same scenario doesn't apply re: Taupau. We converted him to a backrower last year and he made a pretty good fist of it, and he's still improving and lengthening his mins etc. over at Brookvale.
In letting him go, we're giving more mins to Lovett, Halatau and so forth - guys that we either re-signed last summer or will be out of contract this coming summer anyway.
IIRC the only back rowers we have under contract for 2017 are Sirro, Edwards and Lovett.

 

[Russell]

I'd rather keep Taupau and release Sironen and Lovett.

And keep Blair who had very good last year with us offloading to Tedesco running through middle and release Lawrence and Halatau.

And Cherrington and Ballin can go as well.
See with Tapau Blair and Thompson we had 3 guys who were internationals and rarely missed a game. Watching Tapau and Burgess go at it last week and seeing Taupau smash Burgess force an error and nearly won the game for Manly missing many players

It's almost laughable that Sironen and Lovett could be preferred over anyone. But that's our club for you
As for Tapau, he's going well according to every one , except some on here who want to hold a grudge about him leaving for a better offer.

But our "retention" policy is alive and well. Ours is a popgun pack and will stay like it until we get some money into the club.
Sue typifies us , tries hard, has a good game occasionally, then goes missing for a few weeks.yet he's held up here by some, as some sort of enforcer of the pack.
Got to be kidding. Mediocrity is alive and well.

Why is it that some do not want Taupau back - and instead of the reason being he was not good enough for us, couldn't last 80 minutes for us, gave away heaps of cheap penalties, got himself suspended etc.

No it is none of these things - we have a grudge.

Wake up - make your statements instead of having cheap shots at other posters like your hero Taupau.

 

[ricksen]

Taupau wasn't in our top 5 for penalties conceded last year. In order: Lovett, Galloway, Woods, Moses, Brooks.

I'm not saying he's a hero - just that he would have improved our 17 immensely this season, and thus we should have kept him for the extra year.

 

[Russell]

Taupau wasn't in our top 5 for penalties conceded last year. In order: Lovett, Galloway, Woods, Moses, Brooks.

I'm not saying he's a hero - just that he would have improved our 17 immensely this season, and thus we should have kept him for the extra year.

Well that is ok for you to think he would have improved our 17 - that is your opinion.

It is not how many penalties you give away - the question is why, when and what did it cost us.

Mine opinion is - that he would not have improved our 17.

Why does that opinion have to be a grudge?

That is the question not would he have improved us.

 

[Tigermama]

I would have Kapow back in a heartbeat. I never wanted him gone in the first place. 😢

 

[Magpie_Magic]

Wouldn't imagine Lovett Sironen Lawrence or Halatau making 1st grage at many clubs.

But they were amongst our 1st signed.
Perhaps our clubneeds to rethink which playets will really cut it long term.

 

[ricksen]

Taupau wasn't in our top 5 for penalties conceded last year. In order: Lovett, Galloway, Woods, Moses, Brooks.

I'm not saying he's a hero - just that he would have improved our 17 immensely this season, and thus we should have kept him for the extra year.

Well that is ok for you to think he would have improved our 17 - that is your opinion.

It is not how many penalties you give away - the question is why, when and what did it cost us.

Mine opinion is - that he would not have improved our 17.

Why does that opinion have to be a grudge?

That is the question not would he have improved us.

To be fair it was GC that mentioned the 'grudge' - not me.
I think there's a lot of revisionism going on re: Taupau, but fair enough.

 

[stevetiger]

Taupau wasn't in our top 5 for penalties conceded last year. In order: Lovett, Galloway, Woods, Moses, Brooks.

I'm not saying he's a hero - just that he would have improved our 17 immensely this season, and thus we should have kept him for the extra year.

The guy is a killer. He absolutely smashed us and I assume he is still killing them. He also has great leg drive and the ability to bust tackles.

Assuming we had Blair and Taupau a prop/lock rotation like this would be one of the better ones in the comp:-

Prop: Grant/Woods/Ava/Taupau
Lock: Sue/Blair

Playing them all up the middle and rotating them would be significantly better than what we have now.

I don't really consider them compared to Halatau and Lawrence. I reckon having Halatau and Lawrence on the edges with those guys up the middle would work great. I don't know where Sironen fits in at this point in that I'm not sure if he should be on the edge or up the middle.

 

[goldcoast_tiger]

I'd rather keep Taupau and release Sironen and Lovett.

And keep Blair who had very good last year with us offloading to Tedesco running through middle and release Lawrence and Halatau.

And Cherrington and Ballin can go as well.
See with Tapau Blair and Thompson we had 3 guys who were internationals and rarely missed a game. Watching Tapau and Burgess go at it last week and seeing Taupau smash Burgess force an error and nearly won the game for Manly missing many players

It's almost laughable that Sironen and Lovett could be preferred over anyone. But that's our club for you
As for Tapau, he's going well according to every one , except some on here who want to hold a grudge about him leaving for a better offer.

But our "retention" policy is alive and well. Ours is a popgun pack and will stay like it until we get some money into the club.
Sue typifies us , tries hard, has a good game occasionally, then goes missing for a few weeks.yet he's held up here by some, as some sort of enforcer of the pack.
Got to be kidding. Mediocrity is alive and well.

Why is it that some do not want Taupau back - and instead of the reason being he was not good enough for us, couldn't last 80 minutes for us, gave away heaps of cheap penalties, got himself suspended etc.

No it is none of these things - we have a grudge.

Wake up - make your statements instead of having cheap shots at other posters like your hero Taupau.

Well Russ, anyone with a TV can see he's one of Manlys best at the moment , playing plenty of minutes and fitter than ever, Getting credit from most quarters for the improved effectiveness. And more importantly he's playing better than anyone that we have.
And he's NOT soft.
Any thing else needed.
There are plenty of grudges here , because he doesn't, Love the WestsTigers,". "wants more money". " got a big head"

I couldn't care less what he thinks about any of those things.
I'd just like to see him or someone like him that actually scares the opposition team, even just a little bit.
Cause we sure as hell don't have anyone like that here !!
Oh, that's right, we have Sue. You must be kidding.