Ex-Knights Watch

I reckon Casey McClean will get that vacant wing spot at the Panthers (and will be very hard to dislodge, he's good) and I don't reckon his brother Jesse is far behind. Jenkins may get another shot at FG but he might be looking for a club with a weaker list than the Panthers. Let's not forget Charlie Staines went from Penrith's Forbes Ferrari to the Five Dock Fiat pretty quickly...there was even talk of him heading to the Super League last year although I think he's back in Benji's good books.
 
krustykraz said:
I was told today that Penrith has or is about to sign Jenkins for 2 years
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I didn’t see Tom Jenkins play any games for the Knights last year as well as he played for Penrith tonight. He had a big game in both attack and defence. Maybe he just fits better in the Penrith system better than he did with the Knights. Why is this?
Apparently he has been signed with the Panthers on a 2 year development contract.
 
Defence wins games said:
I didn’t see Tom Jenkins play any games for the Knights last year as well as he played for Penrith tonight. He had a big game in both attack and defence. Maybe he just fits better in the Penrith system better than he did with the Knights. Why is this?
Apparently he has been signed with the Panthers on a 2 year development contract.
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Imo most of the Penrith team are system players and play better at Penrith especially in D.
Even JFH made some uncharacteristic misses the other day.
 
It’s funny that I’m on the other side of this now 😆 I was bagging him all last year & then it was the Titans > Dolphins > Cowboys final sequence of games which turned me around. For my money, the most “on” we’ve looked all season and he you can’t give the halfback zero credit for that.

Crossland deserves credit too for bringing energy, support play and playing with pace we hadn’t seen all season on the left flank. But we know Phoenix isn’t really a halfback, and the half who most effectively implemented AOB’s game plan was Cogger. We moved the ball best with him there, he kicked best, and our strike players got the best ball. I personally wouldn’t dump him after one trial but whatever, I’m not at training, probably the coaches know better than me.

Also I have no idea what’s going on with that Cogger to the Dolphins **** because I have it on pretty good authority that Penrith have tried to bring Cogger back after losing Luai & it’s been knocked back by both club and player.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
It’s funny that I’m on the other side of this now 😆 I was bagging him all last year & then it was the Titans > Dolphins > Cowboys final sequence of games which turned me around. For my money, the most “on” we’ve looked all season and he you can’t give the halfback zero credit for that.

Crossland deserves credit too for bringing energy, support play and playing with pace we hadn’t seen all season on the left flank. But we know Phoenix isn’t really a halfback, and the half who most effectively implemented AOB’s game plan was Cogger. We moved the ball best with him there, he kicked best, and our strike players got the best ball. I personally wouldn’t dump him after one trial but whatever, I’m not at training, probably the coaches know better than me.

Also I have no idea what’s going on with that Cogger to the Dolphins **** because I have it on pretty good authority that Penrith have tried to bring Cogger back after losing Luai & it’s been knocked back by both club and player.
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I personally didn’t put winning the final 2 games of the year down to Cogger, or Crossland or anyone in particular (if anything KP was responsible for both tries in the Dolphins game). The whole squad was completely committed and hitting what we know is the time of the year we play our best football. Also AOB decided he wanted to take our style of play in a completely different direction after round 1 and it obviously took us most of the year to adapt to that.

I guess we’ll never know, but I’m pretty positive anyone else would have also done well in the halves at the backend of the season, likewise if Cogger/Crossland had have played earlier in the season when AOB was trying to get the whole squad to play a different style they also would have struggled (which Cogger obviously did - we didn’t see with Crossland). There was so much going on last season in terms of coaching and playing style within the whole team, to me Cogger and Crossland playing OK there was a byproduct of the whole team hitting their straps and understanding what AOB wanted of them rather than just on them.
 
Chaister said:
I personally didn’t put winning the final 2 games of the year down to Cogger, or Crossland or anyone in particular (if anything KP was responsible for both tries in the Dolphins game). The whole squad was completely committed and hitting what we know is the time of the year we play our best football. Also AOB decided he wanted to take our style of play in a completely different direction after round 1 and it obviously took us most of the year to adapt to that.

I guess we’ll never know, but I’m pretty positive anyone else would have also done well in the halves at the backend of the season, likewise if Cogger/Crossland had have played earlier in the season when AOB was trying to get the whole squad to play a different style they also would have struggled (which Cogger obviously did - we didn’t see with Crossland). There was so much going on last season in terms of coaching and playing style within the whole team, to me Cogger and Crossland playing OK there was a byproduct of the whole team hitting their straps and understanding what AOB wanted of them rather than just on them.
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We played our best football at the back end of last year, and those halves were a big part of it. Allowing Ponga to seamlessly play both sides of the field was huge. He probably finished last year looking more dangerous on the right tbh. Cogger's side. We were the better team in NQ too, should have won that, pretty unlucky.
 
Chaister said:
I personally didn’t put winning the final 2 games of the year down to Cogger, or Crossland or anyone in particular (if anything KP was responsible for both tries in the Dolphins game). The whole squad was completely committed and hitting what we know is the time of the year we play our best football. Also AOB decided he wanted to take our style of play in a completely different direction after round 1 and it obviously took us most of the year to adapt to that.

I guess we’ll never know, but I’m pretty positive anyone else would have also done well in the halves at the backend of the season, likewise if Cogger/Crossland had have played earlier in the season when AOB was trying to get the whole squad to play a different style they also would have struggled (which Cogger obviously did - we didn’t see with Crossland). There was so much going on last season in terms of coaching and playing style within the whole team, to me Cogger and Crossland playing OK there was a byproduct of the whole team hitting their straps and understanding what AOB wanted of them rather than just on them.
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I agree with that - if your team is functioning well, Cogger will effectively keep things ticking over. If it’s not, he won’t lift you out of it. But by the same token, I think certain players can gum up the works and overplay their hand. I do think Hastings was guilty of that in 2024 and that was a big part of other players getting jack of him and then him eventually getting dumped from the team in favour of a hooker/lock utility. He was recording his best ever attacking stats individually but the team as a whole constantly looked clunky and out of rhythm.

I know this sounds like I’m saying Cogger doesn’t do anything but, take this for data: Penrith fans love him and want him back. They don’t like Brad Schneider their current backup halfback. Both Luai and Cleary loved playing with him. Schneider by contrast was the reason why Ivan Cleary finally consented to playing Luai at 7 with Cleary out & then picking a 6 in the other halves spot, whereas he’d always previously preferred to leave him at 6 and use Cogger (and O’Sullivan before him, but Penrith fans will tell you Cogger was better) at 7.

Cogger’s game is pure facilitation. I want a halfback who will facilitate Ponga and Sharpe. If it was easy and just anyone could do it, more players would.
 
Owey said:
We played our best football at the back end of last year, and those halves were a big part of it. Allowing Ponga to seamlessly play both sides of the field was huge. He probably finished last year looking more dangerous on the right tbh. Cogger's side. We were the better team in NQ too, should have won that, pretty unlucky.
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I’m definitely not disagreeing we played our best footy all at the end of the year. My point is that the whole entire team was playing their best football then as they’d finally adapted to the change in style of play, rather than Cogger and Crossland alone coming into the side being responsible for the improvement. Earlier in the season when the whole side was struggling with the style change Cogger was awful.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I agree with that - if your team is functioning well, Cogger will effectively keep things ticking over. If it’s not, he won’t lift you out of it. But by the same token, I think certain players can gum up the works and overplay their hand. I do think Hastings was guilty of that in 2024 and that was a big part of other players getting jack of him and then him eventually getting dumped from the team in favour of a hooker/lock utility. He was recording his best ever attacking stats individually but the team as a whole constantly looked clunky and out of rhythm.

I know this sounds like I’m saying Cogger doesn’t do anything but, take this for data: Penrith fans love him and want him back. They don’t like Brad Schneider their current backup halfback. Both Luai and Cleary loved playing with him. Schneider by contrast was the reason why Ivan Cleary finally consented to playing Luai at 7 with Cleary out & then picking a 6 in the other halves spot, whereas he’d always previously preferred to leave him at 6 and use Cogger (and O’Sullivan before him, but Penrith fans will tell you Cogger was better) at 7.

Cogger’s game is pure facilitation. I want a halfback who will facilitate Ponga and Sharpe. If it was easy and just anyone could do it, more players would.
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I understand your point re Cogger being more of a facilitator, but to me other than a few games at the end of the season when the whole team was humming, he wasn’t really helping facilitate KP or the outside backs (I’m taking earlier before KP got injured). We’ll never really know how much of an individual impact Cogger had on those final few games, but I’m a bit hesitant to say that Cogger did better in that situation than say Gamble or Hastings could have, as when we were in a bad situation earlier in the year, Cogger wasn’t any better than they were, a lot of people would argue he was worse. I think we also need to put those last few games into context: we beat the Titans and Souths who were horrendous, Dolphins who were sliding, then got beaten by a Cowboys side who got flogged by the Sharks the following week.

Your points re Penrith are valid, however it doesn’t really impact us or whether Cogger is the right half for us. We know they’re a special system and can make players look better than they are. I (unfortunately lol) work with a lot of Penrith supporters and most of them equally like Schneider.

I just don’t think he’s the best halfback option for us tbh. Seems AOB doesn’t either as I doubt he’d lose his place in the pecking order for Gamble who isn’t even a halfback after 1 trial game if AOB really had faith in him.
 
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