Recruitment And Retention Discussion

sherpa said:
I would guess Niukore was signed before the current crop of 'unkown' forwards showed their potential. At the start of the year it would have been difficult to see that Hopwood, Crouch, Mooney, McEwen, Francis and even Saulo all become regular first graders who will only improve. It would be difficult to foresee all of these players cementing first grade spots this time last year and I'm pretty sure most Knights supporters would have thought after losing KPP and Leo that we would struggle.
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Absolutely, I don’t think anyone foresaw us having the form second row in the competition, and that was with Lucas out injured!
 
Seano said:
Brown and Ponga aren't delivering any premierships without tough, aggressive middle forwards.
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Ponga almost delivered a premiership off the back of blokes who wouldn't get a look in at the Roosters, Panthers, Warriors. A strong forward pack certainly lays the platform but get the team in winning positions with our edge to edge play style and Brown/Ponga will deliver in big moments.
 
Ran the numbers to put this one to bed, comparing him to saulo who i hope/assume he'll be replacing in the line up. Seems he's essentially been a second rower who very occasionally filled in in the front row. Even without training for front row his run meters and pcm are much stronger than Saulos. With a full offseason training for the position I think'll he'll be a big upgrade. If he's impact is worth 700k is still a question mark of course.
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nighttiime said:
Ran the numbers to put this one to bed, comparing him to saulo who i hope/assume he'll be replacing in the line up. Seems he's essentially been a second rower who very occasionally filled in in the front row. Even without training for front row his run meters and pcm are much stronger than Saulos. With a full offseason training for the position I think'll he'll be a big upgrade. If he's impact is worth 700k is still a question mark of course.
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I am honestly surprised roughly 15 tackles per 25 minutes is his work rate in the middle. If you asked me to guess I would have said 12-13.

Yardage stats way better than I would have guessed.
 
Billy said:
My one time watching Nuikore play, in the semi final of reserve grade, I thought he looked very impressive when he had a run - he is a big, powerful guy. The problem was he only had a few runs.
If we can get him to go hard for 20 or 30 minutes, he is an upgrade on Saulo, or should be.
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This kind of sums him up.

He’s a specimen. He looks like he’d test off the charts. And he will sometimes go out there and seem to do absolutely nothing besides 1-2 eye catching runs and one strong tackle.
 
Wouldn’t be the first time.

Anyway it is what it is, honestly if we’d kept Frizell and never signed Niukore I would not have guaranteed Friz would be beating any of Cody, Jacob, Trey & Lachie to a spot in the prop rotation anyway. Things moved a lot faster than the club thought.

I do think POS looked at us seeming a little short, looked at the way the forward market was going to explode with new clubs coming in - Horsburgh ended up getting a hefty pay rise to go to Perth from what I heard, Friz has gotten a raise to go to Wests, Hudson Young $1.1 million player, etc - and concluded we needed to have a versatile do-it-all forward on the books who was gettable right then rather than wait for the chaos later in the season. Didn’t see it coming that the young guys were all gonna take to first grade like ducks to water (hell, I think even Holbrook was caught on the hop by how good Crouch has been, he was miles away from a debut until we got injuries). And now yes we have a guy on the books whose salary might mean a young guy gets squeezed out. So half the fanbase is already off him.

Brutal brutal win for Just Do Nothing Pty Ltd, my football club management consultancy business I’m setting up.
 
Yep. All of those blokes will get a lot of footy; it's a long season.

IMO, Marata will be a good buy despite being looked upon sceptically by some, much like Mooney was. I was also encouraged by the progress of Tommy Cant as the season went on. Maybe has been a bit slower than others development-wise, but I can see him doing a lot of the tough stuff in the middle for the Knights in coming seasons.
 
Good Times said:
It'd be hilarious if Niukore has a blinder of a first year here. I wonder how many would criticise his contract then? $600k for a class forward is cheap.

We signed him about 6 rounds into a season. $600k sounds a fair price at that time for a forward to relocate countries and join the reigning wooden spooners.
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Lol and ?
 
Wicket said:
Yes I know that, I mean extend them further. Add another 2 years more to their current deals is what I mean
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Yeah that won’t happen with their current trajectory, nor should it players in the same context can be 1 hit wonders (referring to Frances).

Contracts are fine as is.
 
What is everyone’s thoughts on Bradman Best’s next contract? Quite a bit of chatter online that he is “unhappy” with the Knights offer but hard to tell how much actual substance is behind it…
 
Nathanwill5 said:
What is everyone’s thoughts on Bradman Best’s next contract? Quite a bit of chatter online that he is “unhappy” with the Knights offer but hard to tell how much actual substance is behind it…
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Honestly I think it’s click bait for a slow off season. Journalists (term used lightly) gotta have something to print or dribble about
 
I find it hard to believe teams are willing to offering a million or more for a guy who may miss a month or two with injuries. Just doesn't happen
The talk about it is just media talk, no team is supposed to or allowed to say they'll offer x amount before Nov 1

That said if he continues to kill it going forward, admittedly he will be hard to keep even missing the odd games here and there.
 
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