Jesse Southwell gone!

jamesgould said:
Although I can't really speak, having barely had time to watch a game this year, it's disappointing to see people say they're never watching the NRLW again. We still have probably the best talent pool in the game coming through. It's another setback for the Knights, but the girls still deserve every inch of our support. It's a great product. And personally I think our supporters have got in behind the women like no other club has ... would any other team's forum have anywhere near this much discussion? The ones I've looked at don't even have a subforum for it.

I'm definitely going to make the effort to tune in more next year! :)
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Yep Broncos fans don’t even care lol.
 
Defence wins games said:
There’s something inherently ill about the Knights NRLW program with so many top line players leaving or left over its short history.
And nobody can finger POS as apparently he has nothing to do with recruitment and retention.
So who’s left at the Knights organisation who is on the nose with the best players leaving or left?
This just doesn’t happen at other clubs.
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To me it started with Parr / Gardner removing Ron Griffiths and bribing in Ben Jeffries. It’s not secret Tamika and the Southwell don’t like him.

No shock either that in her acceptance speech Tamika praised the Broncos CEO and coach in particular, which says everything to me.

We’ll never know, but if Ron was still in charge last year I seriously doubt any of this happens
 
My two cents worth on the saga:
* I have no ill feeling towards Jesse doing what she feels is best for herself. That goes for any individual athlete for me, it is their life and they need to lead it as they see fit. We aren't talking about a contract being breeched here.
* How did the club allow it to come to this? Immediately after the Upton saga they should have wrapped Jesse up long term. How was she still a free agent heading in to this season? Have the Broncos made her feel more valued and the Knights only reacted to outside interest? She should have been made to feel like our franchise player long before outside interest was even a thing.
* What is wrong with the competition that it is the Broncos that have been able to pick her up?
* My initial reaction was that I would lose interest in the comp if this happened too. I have watched, live and on TV, a lot of these games. It is something my daughter is deeply interested in and I'll stay on the journey with her. I'm interested to see how our domination in the pathways leads to success at the top.
 
Owey said:
My two cents worth on the saga:
* I have no ill feeling towards Jesse doing what she feels is best for herself. That goes for any individual athlete for me, it is their life and they need to lead it as they see fit. We aren't talking about a contract being breeched here.
* How did the club allow it to come to this? Immediately after the Upton saga they should have wrapped Jesse up long term. How was she still a free agent heading in to this season? Have the Broncos made her feel more valued and the Knights only reacted to outside interest? She should have been made to feel like our franchise player long before outside interest was even a thing.
* What is wrong with the competition that it is the Broncos that have been able to pick her up?
* My initial reaction was that I would lose interest in the comp if this happened too. I have watched, live and on TV, a lot of these games. It is something my daughter is deeply interested in and I'll stay on the journey with her. I'm interested to see how our domination in the pathways leads to success at the top.
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Jesse requested a release over the last off season too. They talked her into playing out the contract and spent basically this whole season trying to convince her to sign an extension and offered basically everything they conceivably could. She absolutely has been the franchise player this year.

Short of holding a gun to her head I don’t know what else they could have done. It takes two parties to “wrap a player up”.

They also signed more players to long term deals than any other club and in the end Georgia Roche and Evie Jones are the only players who signed those deals a few years back till the end of 2027 who are still here. So the contracts seem to mean even less in the NRLW than the NRL.

Frankly, my read on it is that some of these girls want the perks of being professional athletes but don’t want to have to act like professionals. It is obviously a very together group of players that are dialled in more consistently than every other team in the comp except arguably the Roosters. It’s just bad luck that the players who were the ones causing the drama and friction happen to be the best players. 2024 prelim undermined by Tamika throwing a tantrum in captain’s run, 2025 by Southwell and Braith not at the very least being straight with the club about what was going to happen and letting it conveniently come out in the lead up that she was going to ditch us. It obviously had a massive impact on the performance on the weekend.
 
Newygirl said:
To me it started with Parr / Gardner removing Ron Griffiths and bribing in Ben Jeffries. It’s not secret Tamika and the Southwell don’t like him.

No shock either that in her acceptance speech Tamika praised the Broncos CEO and coach in particular, which says everything to me.

We’ll never know, but if Ron was still in charge last year I seriously doubt any of this happens
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See what leapt out to me is that she bragged on how great her team is now and praising Princey, who’s not looked like a good coach at all before being handed basically an entire Origin team, seemed like an afterthought.

I think she likes not having to make yardage carries anymore tbh. 90% of her run metres would come from line breaks now I reckon.
 
Well it took the Broncos 5 years to get back to the GF after Tamika and bunch of others relationships blew up. We’ll see how it goes this time around with another ticking time bomb added to the mix

Maybe we’re better off without all the drama in the long run. I know Jeffries has done a good job with the pathways, juniors etc but not convinced he has the personality / relationship management skills needed to be a great head coach
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
See what leapt out to me is that she bragged on how great her team is now and praising Princey, who’s not looked like a good coach at all before being handed basically an entire Origin team, seemed like an afterthought.

I think she likes not having to make yardage carries anymore tbh. 90% of her run metres would come from line breaks now I reckon.
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To be fair to Tamika, she did always praise her teammates here as well for allowing her play the way she did. She did also praise Green for improving her game which he did, particularly her ball playing.

As good as the Bronx are, Tamika is the difference. Take her out and they’re just not the same team.
 
Newygirl said:
To me it started with Parr / Gardner removing Ron Griffiths and bribing in Ben Jeffries. It’s not secret Tamika and the Southwell don’t like him.

No shock either that in her acceptance speech Tamika praised the Broncos CEO and coach in particular, which says everything to me.

We’ll never know, but if Ron was still in charge last year I seriously doubt any of this happens
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Another case of Newcastle Knights administration bumbling to yet more self inflicted fatal injuries.
If it wasn’t so pathetic I would scream laughing.
Think of the worst possible outcome and peg the Knights with it.
That’s my mantra atm.
 
Lefty said:
Yes, there is a synergy between the men’s and women’s teams, they both won 2 premierships before becoming uncompetitive.
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Not really, I’d say finishing third after winning two comps is in no way comparable to collecting 5 wooden spoons after winning them.
 
Owey said:
My two cents worth on the saga:
* I have no ill feeling towards Jesse doing what she feels is best for herself. That goes for any individual athlete for me, it is their life and they need to lead it as they see fit. We aren't talking about a contract being breeched here.
* How did the club allow it to come to this? Immediately after the Upton saga they should have wrapped Jesse up long term. How was she still a free agent heading in to this season? Have the Broncos made her feel more valued and the Knights only reacted to outside interest? She should have been made to feel like our franchise player long before outside interest was even a thing.
* What is wrong with the competition that it is the Broncos that have been able to pick her up?
* My initial reaction was that I would lose interest in the comp if this happened too. I have watched, live and on TV, a lot of these games. It is something my daughter is deeply interested in and I'll stay on the journey with her. I'm interested to see how our domination in the pathways leads to success at the top.
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Again, again and again, only the Newcastle administration could botch it like this.
I’m out of it because players the Knights develop will end up at other clubs, and those that are signed to contracts will pull the “compassionate grounds” (whatever that means) to walk away to another club, and wait for it, without Knights been compensated by the other clubs.
After watching, playing or coaching rugby league over a 65 year period, I have never seen or heard of such incompetence.
It’s repeated head banging, and won’t change in the short term if this is what we are all waiting for. Look at the mess we have witnessed over the last 20 odd years!
 
Newygirl said:
Not really, I’d say finishing third after winning two comps is in no way comparable to collecting 5 wooden spoons after winning them.
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What I meant about the women’s team is that there is no prospect of them winning another premiership in the foreseeable future, in that way they unfortunately are uncompetitive.
 
Defence wins games said:
Again, again and again, only the Newcastle administration could botch it like this.
I’m out of it because players the Knights develop will end up at other clubs, and those that are signed to contracts will pull the “compassionate grounds” (whatever that means) to walk away to another club, and wait for it, without Knights been compensated by the other clubs.
After watching, playing or coaching rugby league over a 65 year period, I have never seen or heard of such incompetence.
It’s repeated head banging, and won’t change in the short term if this is what we are all waiting for. Look at the mess we have witnessed over the last 20 odd years!
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You can’t conflate the two things, NRL and NRLW.

Tell us how the Broncos could & should have compensated the Knights, we’re all ears.

The Titans just gave the same sort of release to Shannon Mato. 2 days ago. They happen a lot in the NRLW & it doesn’t seem to take much justification.
 
A major problem with the competition being part-time is that if life circumstances change for a player, clubs aren't really in a position to say "you've got a contract, so upend your life for three months per year and come play for us"

So totally expected that a load of contracts will get signed and then players leave early.
 
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