The pre-season 2026 thread

Oh look I just think you have to have Sharpe in the starting team. Just not at 6 where you have dylbro who is the 6 for the next 10 years. Unless injury of course. He either takes pongas 1 jersey or a wing spot. Bench warmer is **** for a guy of his calibre and don't downplay a wingers job. He will be fine there as we have seen. Can still earn decent money if you're a good winger. Stop talking like his Andrew johns in the halves.
 
Unless he comes out and actually shows some elite skills in 7, and becomes a bloody good half. Perhaps Smith was touted as the 7 but Sharpe has blown them away as a game manager since having time off. There may be a reason Sharpe isnt being planned to play on the wing, if he can do it, and shows potential of a very good 7, a spine of 1 Ponga, 6 Brown, 7 Sharpe, 9 Smith and 13 Crossland could potentially be very good. You could still rely on anyone even Best for kicking.
 
Just a thought, once the opposition team start to gettired and are making mistakes and missing tackles you could bring Sharpe off the bench to play 6, move Brown to a running 7, Smith goes to 9 who will have a bit more speed in him and then move Crossland to 13 who will and awesome link player when it comes to shifting the ball. This style will bring in speed, the uncertainty of if one of the halves are going to run or pass or just create something out of nothing and it also means we become very unpredictable and will play more eyes up footy. By no means am I saying this is even remotely good BUT it could work if they want to do most of our attacking football in a 10-15 minute period in both halves of a game.
 
“good teams aren’t doing this or that” we aren’t a good team yet, we have blown up our spine and we are trying again, let’s face it we aren’t winning the comp in 2026 so i’m happy for them to take the much needed time to build into the future with the long term contracts we have in place
 
danknights said:
Oh look I just think you have to have Sharpe in the starting team. Just not at 6 where you have dylbro who is the 6 for the next 10 years. Unless injury of course. He either takes pongas 1 jersey or a wing spot. Bench warmer is **** for a guy of his calibre and don't downplay a wingers job. He will be fine there as we have seen. Can still earn decent money if you're a good winger. Stop talking like his Andrew johns in the halves.
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This is what drives me mad more than anything, the idea that he’d be “wasted” on the wing so if he’s not in the spine he needs to be the 14. Leave aside that we’ve seen him on the wing already and he was extremely impactful there. Okay so you’re telling me you think Deine Mariner had very little bearing on the Broncos winning the premiership this year. Just did not impact results as much as Tyson Smoothy I guess…

You put him on that left wing and by the end of the season we have an extra 6+ tries we wouldn’t have scored with anyone besides Dom there because he has that ability to turn half chances into tries, on top of converting the vast majority of his clear cut chances because he’s the one guy in the team that just never seems to bottle it.
 
danknights said:
Oh look I just think you have to have Sharpe in the starting team. Just not at 6 where you have dylbro who is the 6 for the next 10 years. Unless injury of course. He either takes pongas 1 jersey or a wing spot. Bench warmer is **** for a guy of his calibre and don't downplay a wingers job. He will be fine there as we have seen. Can still earn decent money if you're a good winger. Stop talking like his Andrew johns in the halves.
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This.
 
Very interesting, Hollbrook coming out and saying Sharpe will not play wing, pretty convincingly. So where will he play? Sounds like he has been playing FB, with Ponga still in recovery and Sandon and DB in the halves. If Hollbrook said he would not play on the wing, the only positions would be 6, centre, or bench.
 
I think Sharpe will be the 6 with Sandon at 9. Not what I want to happen personally but they are all five-eights at the end of the day, we don’t have a genuine halfback
 
Holbrook has worked with Smith as a half for a number of years.

If he thinks he is better suited to 9, I trust that.

If he thinks he is better at 7, I trust that.

If he thinks Sharpe, from video and a month of training, offers more, well I guess I trust that too.

Anyway, we are all just speculating, with a dose of no footy frustration. Holbrook would be pretty keen to keep it under wraps i think.

The biggest piece of the puzzle at the moment is a not quite ready Ponga. Cause that sure simplifies things if he’s unavailable at fullback.

Boy, I hate to put this out there, but surely there’s not a world where Ponga is 14 to ease back after injury and coming on to ‘float’. I think I’d rather he sits out until he’s firing on all cylinders.
 
The real question is what Holbrook plans to do with Gamble.
Gamble has played very little outside the halves. He has played almost exclusively at 6 with a handful of games at 7, 2 games as a centre and a bit of time at hooker during games.
I can't see him getting a game at 6 this year. He is about our 4th choice at 6.
Sharpe will go OK in any spot they put him.
Gamble only has one string in his bow, and he won't be using that.
I think bench hooker is the only realistic role for Gamble to make firstgrade this year - with maybe some time at lock if needed.
 
i can see arguments for any combination on the condition that brown is the 6 . If brown comes out as our 7 it looks clear to me that the coach doesnt have a say in it, or are we to believe that aob and holbrook are the only 2 people in the world that think brown at 7 is the right play.
 
I don't think it matters what number Brown is in.
His game seems to have always been running and passing on the left and a range of kicks that include some cross field kicks for the right winger or centre.
Maybe Holbrook wants him to do something different, but I can't imagine why - that seems exactly what we need.
If they call him a 7 or 6 doesn't matter.
The other half needs to get the right side working.
Ponga does his best work on the left, but has been doing more on the right in recent years. It might be time for him to go mostly right to get Gags and Dom some opportunities.
In my mind, Brown is just working with Lucas and Best and Marzhew and doing an occasional kick across field for Dom. The main difference Brown brings is that he is a running threat in his own right, and if the defence concentrates too much on Lucas and Best, Brown will run himself.
 
Brown will be frothing working with Lucus, and Best. He had a good combination with Lane for years. Best is a better centre than any centre he’s played with at Parramatta. Then you will have Ponga chiming in down that left also.

I’m curious now who will be the left wing now Holbrook has ruled out Sharpe will play there.
 
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