NRL General Recruitment and Retention

I see the Raiders have signed Lipoi Hopoi from Canterbury. I think this is a smart way to shop, if you need a first grade ready player in a certain position, have a look at guys who are rated highly by their club but have better credentialled players in front of them.

It made me reflect on how lucky we are to have Trey. I reckon the Raiders would prefer to have him moving forward rather than Hopoi. And they really might have if Papali'i had decided to move on last year. But a minor premiership convinced Josh to go again and Trey was ripe for the picking. I was a massive fan before we signed him. I think we landed a future star while the raiders have ended up with a decent first grader.
 
Me too mate. I never understood why he wasn’t playing first grade regularly there and took Raiders’ fans word for it that they already had enough metre eaters and needed better defenders like Mariota, Hosking, “Smithies”, etc… but to my eyes Mooney is kind of just better at everything than Mariota, who has plateaued as far as I can see, let alone the white boys.
 
"The Panthers and Chiefs both confirmed the news on Monday morning. To’o will now link up with former Penrith teammate Jarome Luai and what is shaping as a star-studded roster for PNG’s inaugural season."

Just getting ridiculous the Chiefs are allowed to yet again sign and negotiate with a player over 12 months whilst still under contract before Nov 1.

Must be a casualty with the Panthers looking to lock up Yeo, Martin, Cleary.
 
They can only talk to players they've been given permission to talk to.

PS. And I agree with Harv; they probably try to keep everyone except Martin. But some of those players may decide to talk to PNG on Nov. 1 anyway. They've let To'o go early because they've already decided they're not going to the mat for him in 28.
 
R_A said:
"The Panthers and Chiefs both confirmed the news on Monday morning. To’o will now link up with former Penrith teammate Jarome Luai and what is shaping as a star-studded roster for PNG’s inaugural season."

Just getting ridiculous the Chiefs are allowed to yet again sign and negotiate with a player over 12 months whilst still under contract before Nov 1.

Must be a casualty with the Panthers looking to lock up Yeo, Martin, Cleary.
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Yeah To’o is a good player but Yeo, Martin and Cleary are vastly more important to the long term success of that club
 
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KPGreatness said:
Yeah To’o is a good player but Yeo, Martin and Cleary are vastly more important to the long term success of that club
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They signed Jenkins a couple of months ago, wonder if that was the first sign hey...

Seano said:
They can only talk to players they've been given permission to talk to.
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Nothing in the articles from what I saw but still a bit ridiculous the amount that are allowed to. Regardless of who initiated it.

Also it's a terrible look parading and commenting on these signings whilst their under contract elsewhere. No wonder the Tigers fell apart seeing their mate Luai snapped signing his PNG contract publicly.
 
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Categorising teams by how much danger they're in of being seriously messed around by the expansion clubs:

Strong roster, likely to lose/already losing a large swathe of key players
Penrith Panthers

Strong core, but very likely to lose/already losing some secondary guys
Cronulla Sharks
Brisbane Broncos
Dolphins
North Queensland Cowboys
Sydney Roosters

Already with a weak roster/roster in transition/roster with massive question marks, but have to compete with expansion clubs in the market
Canberra Raiders
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Gold Coast Titans
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
Melbourne Storm
Parramatta Eels
South Sydney Rabbitohs
Wests Tigers
Perth Bears (lmao)

Strong roster/a lot of emerging talent with basically every keeper already secured/likely to re-sign
Newcastle Knights
New Zealand Warriors
St George-Illawarra Dragons


Life comes at you really fast in this sport.

To be clear, this isn't me saying the Dragons will be better than say the Roosters or Sharks in 2028, they probably won't be - I'm ranking teams by how well-positioned they are right now to have *improved* by 2028, or at the very least remain as good in the case of a team like the Wahs.
 
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R_A said:
Nothing in the articles from what I saw but still a bit ridiculous the amount that are allowed to. Regardless of who initiated it.
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You really think Penrith would be sitting on their hands if To'o had signed without their permission to talk to other clubs? That's not how it works.

R_A said:
Also it's a terrible look parading and commenting on these signings whilst their under contract elsewhere.
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They literally haven't been. Watch the interview with Chamiss on NRL Fanatics. He's asked about Cleary, and he does not comment. Because he's not allowed to comment. You're assuming the worst with PNG for some reason; I don't really get it.

Overall PNG (and the Bears and the almost certain to be NZ South Island franchise) are all good for the NRL. None of them is going to come in and dominate the NRL no matter who they sign or what limited perks they get on entry.

R_A said:
No wonder the Tigers fell apart seeing their mate Luai snapped signing his PNG contract publicly.
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The Tigers fell apart for many reasons; arguably one is the Laui situation. But that's on them; it's a contract THEY signed with Laui that allowed him to negotiate with other clubs. And he exercised that right.

Sensible clubs don't sign contracts with clauses like that, but every season the Tigers seem to come a cropper because of some dumb contract clause they've agreed to. Blame the Tigers management, not PNG.
 
KPGreatness said:
Yeah To’o is a good player but Yeo, Martin and Cleary are vastly more important to the long term success of that club
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I don't disagree with this but I saw something today which said To'o has the 4th highest winning percentage of any player (over 100 games) in history. Only 3 players from the Dragons 11 premierships in a row team have higher.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Given Corey just sexually assaulted one of our players, I might have to pass.
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It was all part of the plan, he knew Gagai was going to be a Bronco next year when he was playing for the Knights. Wanted to get inside Gagai's head. Holbrook will turn Corey into the player Ricky never could.
 
Seano said:
They literally haven't been. Watch the interview with Chamiss on NRL Fanatics.
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He's already been in trouble that his boyfriend Danny Weidler had to defend him and say the Chiefs did nothing wrong a few months back. And its a fact he said 'He would be on our list' when referring to Munster who isn't a FA until Nov 1.

Again I would be filthy if it was one of our guys photographed signing a contract with PNG whilst under contract with us and a few years away from leaving. Likewise if another team was commenting on it. Just unprofessional.

Seano said:
You're assuming the worst with PNG for some reason; I don't really get it.
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Lot of stink around, that's all. 6 months before becoming a GM he was writing hit pieces on Ponga wanting out of the Knights. Which were completely incorrect and had no basis for a story. Tell me that isn't suss. Knowing full well the timing, and that he probably had a good idea he had the GM gig.
Yeah it's hard to root for a team that has an unfair advantage as well as the media in their pockets.

Hopefully they lose every game in 2028 so it's a deterrent for everyone else.
 
Fair dinkum dude....you lost me after "boyfriend"...just nonsense.

PNG have had permission to talk to the players they've signed. Fact.

They have not been talking about players they don't have permission to talk to or about (ref: Cleary question in the Chammas interview, he blanks it entirely). Media speculation about who the Chiefs might be interested in is just that, speculation to fill column inches. It has nothing to do with the club. The club has broken no rules.

R_A said:
Lot of stink around
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There literally isn't...that's the point.

Your dislike of Chammas, whether justified or not, has nothing to do with what's actually happened here.

The 4-time back-to-back champions, Penrith Panthers, are not run by fools. The interesting thing here is not spurious nonsense that the Chiefs have done anything wrong; they haven't. It's that the Panthers have decided to let one of the premier wingers in the game over the last 5 years walk at the age of 29.
 
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