2022 Knights Recruitment & Retention Thread

I remember the player I had the most excitement for from over the ditch was Toka Likiliki.

Siutonga had already been in our system for a few years and even played a few first grade games, then we heard about Toka, the younger, much bigger brother who was steamrolling blokes back in NZ. It's a shame his attitude never matched his ability, he could have been anything.
 
Billy said:
Sau and Taia weren't juniors we brought over from NZ.
Smith got Sau from Canberra and Taia from Parra as established reserve graders on the verge of firstgrade. I don't know where they were from originally, but I thought they were both Australian born.
We bring over 2 or 3 every year it seems, and guys like Sasagi, Toa, Vea'ila, Ma'amania and even Dan Ticehurst are some of my favourite juniors, but for the couple of dozen really promising ones we've had since we first signed guys like Hanan Laban, Tim Natusch and Kalifa Faifai Loa - about a handful have played firstgrade and only Levi has played a significant number of games.
Click to expand...
Junior Sa’u was born in Auckland.

The names you mentioned barely played first grade, so can hardly be accused of being disloyal.
 
Patty said:
I remember the player I had the most excitement for from over the ditch was Toka Likiliki.

Siutonga had already been in our system for a few years and even played a few first grade games, then we heard about Toka, the younger, much bigger brother who was steamrolling blokes back in NZ. It's a shame his attitude never matched his ability, he could have been anything.
Click to expand...
Never had the athleticism for first grade, unfortunately.
 
Patty said:
I remember the player I had the most excitement for from over the ditch was Toka Likiliki.

Siutonga had already been in our system for a few years and even played a few first grade games, then we heard about Toka, the younger, much bigger brother who was steamrolling blokes back in NZ. It's a shame his attitude never matched his ability, he could have been anything.
Click to expand...
Played footy at Byron Bay back in 2020 with Suitonga up in the front row for our first grade side. Absolute wrecking ball in local footy, was awesome to have at the club with the likes of Todd Carney and Sam Saville playing alongside him.

The best NZ born bloke we recruited in the past 10 years would be Joseph Tapine imo. Can't remember if he was let go or decided to go elsewhere but he's gone on to good things both internationally and at club.
 
jamesgould said:
Junior Sa’u was born in Auckland.

The names you mentioned barely played first grade, so can hardly be accused of being disloyal.
Click to expand...
The point is, where should we bring in young players from?
I say signing English kids won't be any more productive for us than signing Kiwi kids.
We seem to do better with country kids who are pretty happy to live in a country town like the recent lot from North Qld and the many many players we've got from the North coast and Central coast.
 
Billy said:
The point is, where should we bring in young players from?
I say signing English kids won't be any more productive for us than signing Kiwi kids.
We seem to do better with country kids who are pretty happy to live in a country town like the recent lot from North Qld and the many many players we've got from the North coast and Central coast.
Click to expand...
Your own backyard might be a good start.

Newcastle and the hunter is massive and would have just as many if not more juniors then most clubs. Its criminal that next to no locals have exceeded in FG over the last decade.
 
Billy said:
The point is, where should we bring in young players from?
I say signing English kids won't be any more productive for us than signing Kiwi kids.
We seem to do better with country kids who are pretty happy to live in a country town like the recent lot from North Qld and the many many players we've got from the North coast and Central coast.
Click to expand...
Bring in and try to stockpile the best guys we can. Just statistically, we will find better players the more places we look.
 
Billy said:
The point is, where should we bring in young players from?
I say signing English kids won't be any more productive for us than signing Kiwi kids.
We seem to do better with country kids who are pretty happy to live in a country town like the recent lot from North Qld and the many many players we've got from the North coast and Central coast.
Click to expand...
Agree with you here, don't want to bring up the forbidden fruit but I had a little bit to do with Hunter Wildfires in the Shute Shield Colts Rugby UnionComp last season and when we talked about recruiting we talked about how we have a larger reach due to us still being more of a country town. Meaning that we could look at people anywhere from Kyogle (far northern nsw) through to Lismore, Coffs, Kempsey, Taree and down to Newcastle and anyone in between because we still aren't Sydney yet can play at the highest level still.
If that makes sense haha
 
Billy said:
The point is, where should we bring in young players from?
I say signing English kids won't be any more productive for us than signing Kiwi kids.
We seem to do better with country kids who are pretty happy to live in a country town like the recent lot from North Qld and the many many players we've got from the North coast and Central coast.
Click to expand...
I think your original point is certainly a fair one. For some players, living in Newy is a positive, and for others it's definitely not.

The only nuance I'd add is that you can't necessarily lump the English guys into one group. I don't know enough about Young to know where he grew up, but he debuted for Huddersfield. If he's from that area, that's a very different proposition than trying to get a London kid to settle in Newcastle.
 
Billy said:
The point is, where should we bring in young players from?
I say signing English kids won't be any more productive for us than signing Kiwi kids.
We seem to do better with country kids who are pretty happy to live in a country town like the recent lot from North Qld and the many many players we've got from the North coast and Central coast.
Click to expand...
We should bring in promising players from wherever we can find them if we get the chance. Local players should provide more obvious and easy targets, but barely any of them have paid off in the last 15 years either!

Lots of NRL sides recruit from NZ/England/Pacific Islands with a lot of success, so I don’t think it’s smart to disregard that on principal. Newcastle is a lot more similar to NZ than Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne, so if promising NZ juniors aren’t sticking around (which I don’t particularly think is accurate) then there’s something else going wrong. The Knights proud history of Kiwi players indicates to me it’s a pretty good fit. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
JuniorFromNewyy said:
Played footy at Byron Bay back in 2020 with Suitonga up in the front row for our first grade side. Absolute wrecking ball in local footy, was awesome to have at the club with the likes of Todd Carney and Sam Saville playing alongside him.

The best NZ born bloke we recruited in the past 10 years would be Joseph Tapine imo. Can't remember if he was let go or decided to go elsewhere but he's gone on to good things both internationally and at club.
Click to expand...
Tapine was asking for double what he was worth at the time, so we let him walk which was probably a smart decision.

Don't get me wrong, he's a very solid first grader with X factor but he certainly hasn't hit the heights that were expected of him just yet.
 
Patty said:
Tapine was asking for double what he was worth at the time, so we let him walk which was probably a smart decision.

Don't get me wrong, he's a very solid first grader with X factor but he certainly hasn't hit the heights that were expected of him just yet.
Click to expand...
Still was a big loss though, gone onto great things. But wasn't worth much when he left, would be good in any pack at any club.
 
cowboyman said:
Your own backyard might be a good start.

Newcastle and the hunter is massive and would have just as many if not more juniors then most clubs. Its criminal that next to no locals have exceeded in FG over the last decade.
Click to expand...

The local kids have all been trying to emulate their hero KP, and have grown fat and lazy on strawberry milkshakes. There may never be another good local junior again, unless we can find the next George Rose.
 
This is just the narrative I’ve been told but did the knights rip up Albert Kelly’s contract because he broke a light at fannys (now argyle house) or was there more to it?
 
BETTERTHANLEGO said:
This is just the narrative I’ve been told but did the knights rip up Albert Kelly’s contract because he broke a light at fannys (now argyle house) or was there more to it?
Click to expand...
Kelly had a brilliant junior career for a couple of clubs and debuted in firstgrade for Cronulla as a teenager. He was released by all his clubs because of behavioural issues related to alcohol. He is from Macksville and ended up playing for Central in the Newcastle comp. Wayne Bennett offered him a chance at the Knights on condition he didn't drink. After a preseason with reserves and half a dozen games in reserves he was looking like he could make firstgrade very soon but getting in trouble at a nightclub at 2am put an end to that. He went to the Titans and they eventually released him too. He went to play for Hull in the ESL and was often in trouble for drunken 2 am antics there as well, but they put up with him because he was a great player for them.
The sad thing is that he's never done anything serious - he's just a pain in the *** when he has a few drinks.
 
Bit of an out of the box thought... But will the Knights consider looking at signing Daine Laurie for 2024 as a five eight/fullback considering Tigers are yet to open discussions and he is free to talk to other clubs as of November 1. Massive talent, very versatile, X Factor, and work ethic is great. Adds a point of difference in attack and arguably tigers best player week in week out.
 
JuniorFromNewyy said:
Bit of an out of the box thought... But will the Knights consider looking at signing Daine Laurie for 2024 as a five eight/fullback considering Tigers are yet to open discussions and he is free to talk to other clubs as of November 1. Massive talent, very versatile, X Factor, and work ethic is great. Adds a point of difference in attack and arguably tigers best player week in week out.
Click to expand...
If he is there best player week in week out why haven't they resigned him .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top