Chris Houston signs with the Widnes Vikings

slotmachine said:
Mason's contract finished and wasn't extended though.
I'm honestly not sure if we've sent someone under contract packing before?

There's been plenty who have jumped ship of their own accord of course. Scott, BJ, Darius etc etc.

Edit: I guess there has been packer/wicks/houston himself.
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There were quite a few in Bennett's first year - Wes Naiqama, Junior Sa'u, he was off contract, but Zeb Taia ...

Beau Henry before Bennett even got here.

Cory Paterson.
 
jamesgould said:
There were quite a few in Bennett's first year - Wes Naiqama, Junior Sa'u, he was off contract, but Zeb Taia ...

Beau Henry before Bennett even got here.

Cory Paterson.
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Ah yep, there was quite the clean out by Bennett! It's fun to do it every few years :dancing:
 
I quite like Houston. He doesn't do anything flash or fancy, but he does the work. He put in more work than some of our other stars. I think the reason he gets so much hate is because he suffers from Nickelback Syndrome. Everybody hates Nickelback because it seems popular to do so.
 
TinyBobcats said:
I quite like Houston. He doesn't do anything flash or fancy, but he does the work. He put in more work than some of our other stars. I think the reason he gets so much hate is because he suffers from Nickelback Syndrome. Everybody hates Nickelback because it seems popular to do so.
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Sooo ... we got ourselves a Nickelback fan, have we? :p
 
jamesgould said:
Sooo ... we got ourselves a Nickelback fan, have we? :p
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Hahaha. Nah man. I'm not a fan, but I don't hate them either. If I hear a song on the radio by them, I like to listen, but I wouldn't buy an album. I just don't understand all the dislike and hate.
 
There's a good reason he's hated. He provides no impact in attack or defence. He's just a worker & even in that role he can be a liability with his arm grabbing attempts & lazy penalties. Usually those worker players tend to be hard hitters in defence too, but he isn't. Tapine looked like a god compared to Houston when put in his right second row spot. If you can't see that then maybe you are suffering from the opposite of Nickelback syndrome, you like Houston because it is unpopular to do so.
 
I get the Houston hate in recent years, but this guy was one of our most consistent performers when we first got him, and often one of the first players selected each week. Very rarely injured, always gave his all and did all the little things that goes unnoticed with very few errors in his game. I'm pretty sure he was borderline Origin at some stage in his career. Unfortunately father time caught up with him and he's a shadow of his former self.

I'm sure he'll be able to find a spot on a Super League team while earning some decent coin as well. Unfortunately I doubt he's on very big money so moving him on would just be a way to give some of our juniors more playing time.
 
This is great news for Knights fans, and no not just because it's Chris Houston leaving. If you read the entire article it says towards the bottom that Brown has placed Joe Tapine ahead of Houston in the pecking order. Tapine is arguably one of the 3 most highly touted young players, along with Sione and Levi, about to break through and really contribute to the teams success. In my opinion Tapine was one of the biggest mistakes of Stone's head coaching career thus far. Too often Tapine was used poorly and ineffectively by Stone, he was brought of the bench to play as a reserve prop/lock and was forced to play in the central part of the field, Tapine is at his best when he is playing as an edge backrower where he can use his light footwork and offloading ability to create opportunities for the outside backs. There were two games towards the middle of the year where Tapine was used correctly, if I recall it was vs Canberra and a game in Brisbane, where Tapine ran for over 100m and had a few try assists by playing in his natural position. After those games Tapine was dropped back to cup to allow Houston into the starting lineup and Newton onto the bench.

Brown has really impressed me with just about everything he has said and done so far in his short time and this move is well overdue. While none of this equates to wins on the field yet it is a clear move in the right direction. Houston is 31 this year and already on the decline and Brown has made the right move. I'm not a Houston fan and while moving him on for cap relief (however slight) and because his performance is lacking is certainly nice on it's own, you can't help but sit back and look at the bigger picture here and smile a little bit.
 
TheBatman said:
This is great news for Knights fans, and no not just because it's Chris Houston leaving. If you read the entire article it says towards the bottom that Brown has placed Joe Tapine ahead of Houston in the pecking order. Tapine is arguably one of the 3 most highly touted young players, along with Sione and Levi, about to break through and really contribute to the teams success. In my opinion Tapine was one of the biggest mistakes of Stone's head coaching career thus far. Too often Tapine was used poorly and ineffectively by Stone, he was brought of the bench to play as a reserve prop/lock and was forced to play in the central part of the field, Tapine is at his best when he is playing as an edge backrower where he can use his light footwork and offloading ability to create opportunities for the outside backs. There were two games towards the middle of the year where Tapine was used correctly, if I recall it was vs Canberra and a game in Brisbane, where Tapine ran for over 100m and had a few try assists by playing in his natural position. After those games Tapine was dropped back to cup to allow Houston into the starting lineup and Newton onto the bench.

Brown has really impressed me with just about everything he has said and done so far in his short time and this move is well overdue. While none of this equates to wins on the field yet it is a clear move in the right direction. Houston is 31 this year and already on the decline and Brown has made the right move. I'm not a Houston fan and while moving him on for cap relief (however slight) and because his performance is lacking is certainly nice on it's own, you can't help but sit back and look at the bigger picture here and smile a little bit.
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Spot on, son :)
 
The amount of money we've freed up is ridiculous. I don't buy into the upgrades taking it all up talk, there's no way. Hodkinson was apparently a lot cheaper than expected too. We're not just talking Gidley, McManus, Roberts, Scott, Clydsdale, Houston, Leilua etc but we also no longer pay Boyd's huge contract, we saved 300k with Packer, we lost Cuthbo and literally another 20+ NSW Cup/NRL players. I know we got Tariq and Hodkinson and a few cheaper guys like Paea and Stockwell and I know we have given decent upgrades to Sione and Gagai (I really doubt guys like Sims and Mamo got much more than what they were already on), also we have brought in plenty of young guys who would be cheap... I just don't see how we haven't got something big planned.
 
TheBatman said:
This is great news for Knights fans, and no not just because it's Chris Houston leaving. If you read the entire article it says towards the bottom that Brown has placed Joe Tapine ahead of Houston in the pecking order. Tapine is arguably one of the 3 most highly touted young players, along with Sione and Levi, about to break through and really contribute to the teams success. In my opinion Tapine was one of the biggest mistakes of Stone's head coaching career thus far. Too often Tapine was used poorly and ineffectively by Stone, he was brought of the bench to play as a reserve prop/lock and was forced to play in the central part of the field, Tapine is at his best when he is playing as an edge backrower where he can use his light footwork and offloading ability to create opportunities for the outside backs. There were two games towards the middle of the year where Tapine was used correctly, if I recall it was vs Canberra and a game in Brisbane, where Tapine ran for over 100m and had a few try assists by playing in his natural position. After those games Tapine was dropped back to cup to allow Houston into the starting lineup and Newton onto the bench.

Brown has really impressed me with just about everything he has said and done so far in his short time and this move is well overdue. While none of this equates to wins on the field yet it is a clear move in the right direction. Houston is 31 this year and already on the decline and Brown has made the right move. I'm not a Houston fan and while moving him on for cap relief (however slight) and because his performance is lacking is certainly nice on it's own, you can't help but sit back and look at the bigger picture here and smile a little bit.
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Tapine was handled woefully in 2015.
 
Junior11 said:
The amount of money we've freed up is ridiculous. I don't buy into the upgrades taking it all up talk, there's no way. Hodkinson was apparently a lot cheaper than expected too. We're not just talking Gidley, McManus, Roberts, Scott, Clydsdale, Houston, Leilua etc but we also no longer pay Boyd's huge contract, we saved 300k with Packer, we lost Cuthbo and literally another 20+ NSW Cup/NRL players. I know we got Tariq and Hodkinson and a few cheaper guys like Paea and Stockwell and I know we have given decent upgrades to Sione and Gagai (I really doubt guys like Sims and Mamo got much more than what they were already on), also we have brought in plenty of young guys who would be cheap... I just don't see how we haven't got something big planned.
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Agree totally. Just wish they'd hurry up and announce at least 1 new signing. *A decent signing I mean haha
 
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