2026 Recruitment And Retention

Owey said:
Man, this is so hard sometimes...

The club desperately needs to define it's own style. We hired the best reputed recruitment guy in the industry in POS. He obviously has a strong idea on how we should play. He has recruited to that end. That's his job. It is a role closer to the Director of Football of a European football club or GM of an nfl team. Clubs need an identity. The GM usually outlasts several coaches and will hire coaches who fit the identity they are trying to create. POS is defining an identity for this club. We should all be glad about that.

I put "Melbourne" system in quotes for a reason. I thought everyone would understand that we have chosen run first halves and will be defined by that. The closest example is Melbourne. I don't think for a second we will try to take on Melbourne's DNA. We will end up doing it our way. But isn't the blueprint clear?

How it plays out could be completely different. Tweaks can be made within this overall formula. Someone might be injured and the team goes to a new level without them. Someone might find career best form in a position they weren't bought in to play. It is still the coaches prerogative to play how he sees fit. It should be a comfort to everyone that there is a grown up in the room at least defining a style for us. POS isn't locked in to the style I described above either. He signed the best talent available in Brown at the time and that has given us a defined style. He was chasing Pezet, which would have led us to a different style. But with the talent we have next year, the coach needs to buy in to a running halves mentality.
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I get it. I'm just saying that if Sharpe playing in the halves is a key part of this plan, it will fail. If Dylan Brown becoming a top class #7 is a key part of this plan, it will fail. If Ponga sort of toeing the line between fullback and halfback is a key part of the plan, it will fail.

Phoenix wound up at 13 due to the club working backwards from the problems Sharpe & Ponga's new roles caused from the team. Rather than putting everyone in the spots that made most sense from the beginning.

All just opinions obviously but the "run first halves" thing works for Melbourne for specific reasons unique to them. Most teams try to find a halfback who is actually halfbacky for a reason.

If this is how we play next year, I hope I'm wrong, but I am convinced it will be a dog's breakfast and we'll suck again. If it works great I'll be delighted but I don't know what evidence we've seen that might lead anyone to believe it will.

I am pretty confident that at least one of the coaches we interview will have a very different idea of how to use the roster than O'Sullivan's idea, and I want them to be open to being convinced by their answers, that's all.
 
If/once we have Smith I’m really happy with the signing for next year.
Brown
Mooney
Smith

The young guys stepping up. Older heads in the fowards need to lead. JSaf and Frizz, Lucus, Crossland.

We still lack depth and injury is a major concern.
 
frankLauda said:
If/once we have Smith I’m really happy with the signing for next year.
Brown
Mooney
Smith

The young guys stepping up. Older heads in the fowards need to lead. JSaf and Frizz, Lucus, Crossland.

We still lack depth and injury is a major concern.
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Add Saulo to this list I rekon. It wouldn't surprise me if he out performed Mooney next season
 
frankLauda said:
If/once we have Smith I’m really happy with the signing for next year.
Brown
Mooney
Smith

The young guys stepping up. Older heads in the fowards need to lead. JSaf and Frizz, Lucus, Crossland.

We still lack depth and injury is a major concern.
Click to expand...
I really think our forward recruitment has targeted a certain type of big body mobile middles who have a bit of an offload which will compliment our eyes up spine of KP, Sharpe, Brown and Smith.
Guys like:
Saulo
Mooney
Hola

plus Friz, and J Saf... I really think our roster cleanup this year has been good and needed without being too extreme and only losing the likes of overpaid under performing players like; Brailey, Elliott, Hethro, Hastings, KPP and Pryce.
 
Junior said:
I really think our forward recruitment has targeted a certain type of big body mobile middles who have a bit of an offload which will compliment our eyes up spine of KP, Sharpe, Brown and Smith.
Guys like:
Saulo
Mooney
Hola

plus Friz, and J Saf... I really think our roster cleanup this year has been good and needed without being too extreme and only losing the likes of overpaid under performing players like; Brailey, Elliott, Hethro, Hastings, KPP and Pryce.
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“An offload” what’s one of those? 😜
 
it’s crazy to look at some of our losses from this season and how much cap we are free up, looking at Clarkeys post on top 10 salaries in each position and this is what we have in our 2025 squad:

KP 2nd highest fullback @1.2m
Best 5th highest centre @725k
Hastings 6th highest five-eighth @720k
Brailey 5th highest hooker @700k
KPP 3rd highest backrow @810k
Elliott 10th highest lock @500k

so from hastings down we are loosing them all, freeing up around 2.75m… even with brown on 1.3m, and say mooney and smith are both around 500k, we still got just under 500 left
 
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Junior said:
it’s crazy to look at some of our losses from this season and how much cap we are free up, looking at Clarkeys post on top 10 salaries in each position and this is what we have in our 2025 squad:

KP 2nd highest fullback @1.2m
Best 5th highest centre @725k
Hastings 6th highest five-eighth @720k
Brailey 5th highest hooker @700k
KPP 3rd highest backrow @810k
Elliott 10th highest lock @500k

so from hastings down we are loosing them all, freeing up around 2.75m… even with brown on 1.3m, and say mooney and smith are both around 500k, we still got just under 500 left
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Hetho was supposed to be on close to $500k too apparently.
 
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