2025 Recruitment And Retention

Cogger is fackin sheit. He's played one good game against a non-existent South's defence. Everyone gonna be reminded real quick this weekend why he has been kept out of the team by Hastings, Crossland and Gamble.
 
slotmachine said:
What other option is there?

Hard mode: your answer needs to ignore the obvious play of dangling cap space and a marquee half breaks their contract to come to Newcastle.
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Lachlan Galvin lol

Look, Pezet is the obvious best choice. But I'm just so unconvinced that he'll give us more than we've got already but with flimsy defence. Maybe I'm wrong.
 
Les Misérables said:
Lachlan Galvin lol

Look, Pezet is the obvious best choice. But I'm just so unconvinced that he'll give us more than we've got already but with flimsy defence. Maybe I'm wrong.
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Pezet may be the best choice or not my concern is he won’t be any better than what we have and cost more especially as we have our current 7’s for a few years and it might take him a couple of seasons to achieve his max.
Other alternatives such as Walker will likely cost more than we can afford to pay unless we are able to offload the likes of Hastings and Cogger.
Talk about a no win situation
 
Les Misérables said:
I think you're right about Lachie Galvin. Not only is he super young with lots of upside, he is already a very high quality player. And there really isn't much else out there other than Moses.

Makes me think we should be chasing him.

If I'm honest I don't really see the Pezet you see. But I hope you're right because if you're wrong it's gonna be another 5 years wasted for the club (assuming we sign him).
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He does need work but there are things he does really well naturally. By all reports as well, very good kid, works hard, and that matters.

And I know this goes against stuff I’ve said previously, but I think it does matter that he was our junior, he’s a kid we invested so much in, and we blew it. We need to correct the error, like the Broncos did when they got Walsh back. I want the “Confirmed: Jonah Pezet is coming home” signing announcement.

We need to be a club the best local kids aspire to play for. I just don’t think the Penrith Panthers are the force they are right now without that specific connection so much of their squad has with the area.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m pretty sure his family still lives on the central coast. A release from the last year of a contract tends to be more likely when the player can play the homesickness card. Might also be more likely given the close friendship between Bellyache and AOB.
 
And yeah I’m very high on Leo but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Throwing on an extra $1-200K out of desperation to keep the player on a bunch of the deals we’ve done is probably the main reason we’re in the position we’re in with the cap. It adds up.
 
I dont know how much credit he has got but Scott pryde is saying that leo is going to test the open market and apparently he is concerned about the player clean out and having experienced senior players around him to devolp his career.

Knowing journslists probaly mostly made up.
 
nunnsy said:
I dont know how much credit he has got but Scott pryde is saying that leo is going to test the open market and apparently he is concerned about the player clean out and having experienced senior players around him to devolp his career.

Knowing journslists probaly mostly made up.
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That’s just taken from the David Riccio article posted earlier. Says exactly the same thing.
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
And yeah I’m very high on Leo but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Throwing on an extra $1-200K out of desperation to keep the player on a bunch of the deals we’ve done is probably the main reason we’re in the position we’re in with the cap. It adds up.
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I tend to agree, but given leos age you have to speculate his best is still a few years ahead of him. We need to find the money (within reason)
 
You think Leo is in a similar mould to JFH. Will he get to the same level, who knows. But what salary was JFH on earlier in his career?

From all accounts he’s not on much with his current contract. And has he missed any games with injury? Based on the potential upside with him, next contract would have to be close to JSafs salary, maybe even slightly more.

It makes sense to move DSaf on to free up for the likes of Leo, Lucus, etc.
 
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Reported now that Elliot now has the tap on the shoulder too. Which is to be expected as he was also paid ALOT of $$ to come here.
I can’t deny he definitely helped the team last yr with his enthusiasm, much like Gamble.

But the club now has to nail the fact that paying overs has to end and recruiting local talent and a few high level talents from outside the catchment (McEwen, DeCourcey, Wil Hope, Herdegen).

I don’t think we’ll leave ourselves short next yr on experience if we end up losing Dsaf and Elliot, they’ll recruit some experience. But also rely on some junior talent.

Still a long way to go to seeing these changes made. Going to be interesting to see where it goes.

I don’t believe the Thompson rumours. He deserves an upgrade but most definitely not over $500k. Not yet anyway.

Not an expert on contracts but is it in every contract you earn X amount but can get X amount if you lead us to top 8/4 or make origin/internationals. Basically incentives to perform, not just in contract year.
 
Elliott hasn't consistently delivered since he got here for various reasons but he is still a focal point for our attacking system (or lack thereof).

I think giving him the tap is the right move given how much he's on, given his inconsistency I'd hope we can bridge the performance gap with Croker and Crossland rotating through 13 until a longer-term option becomes apparrent.
 
Worth noting that certain key juniors eg Cody Hopwood and Connor Votano have been locked down to four year commitments at the same time that certain older players have been tapped on the shoulder. Meanwhile the only player Peter O’Sullivan has made a comment about trying to pursue is young Pezet, who besides being formerly our junior, is the most talented half currently stuck behind an established pair. It’s pretty clear what Peter thinks the problem with the squad is and what we need to do to fix it.

It makes sense to me. We’ve got plenty of guys with 50, 100+ games experience, and a few with over 200. How much experience do you need? Is a lack of experience the thing which holds us back against better teams, or a lack of, you know… talent? Athleticism? Dynamism?
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
Worth noting that certain key juniors eg Cody Hopwood and Connor Votano have been locked down to four year commitments at the same time that certain older players have been tapped on the shoulder. Meanwhile the only player Peter O’Sullivan has made a comment about trying to pursue is young Pezet, who besides being formerly our junior, most talented half currently stuck behind an established pair. It’s pretty clear what Peter thinks the problem with the squad is and what we need to do to fix it.

It makes sense to me. We’ve got plenty of guys with 50, 100+ games experience, and a few with over 200. How much experience do you need? Is a lack of experience the thing which holds us back against better teams, or a lack of, you know… talent? Athleticism? Dynamism?
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Agree and I think it’s what club is trying to do, put some players in a position of confidence and say “you’re young but the future of the club so we’ll give you the opportunities to excel”. I don’t think we’ve had a squad of talent like the SG/Flegg boys for some time. Giving them a clear path and goal to build club around them would be a big carrot for them.

Likes of Crokes and Jones are important for this too and they need to be the new driving force of what the standard needs to be. Have fun with mates, but bring the standard on training days and pre season prep.

I’m kind of excited for where we are going to be honest. I hope the boys see the losses of Elliot and Dsaf as a challenge to raise the standard even higher.

Side note. Dsaf apparently saying “club is kidding if they think I’ll leave for a lesser paying contract” and then playing like he is in past 3-4 weeks compared to last 5+ years is an absolute joke. He hasn’t dominated teams since his origin debut. Hugely disappointing comments, but not surprising either.
 
From a mate who's normally got decent mail, Ponga unhappy with the direction club is taking and wants to win a Premiership, Roosters likely destination.
 
My understanding is DSaf is contracted to Knights for 2025-26 for about $850K a season if he signs elsewhere for no matter what, let’s say $600k a season he will be paid the balance of $250k by Knights so he will be fully paid for the next two seasons. What he does and gets for 2027 onwards is between him and whoever he signs with
 
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