2026 team as it stands

Joshhh said:
On low money and year to year contracts I don't mind. They're both approaching 100 games, they are capable of filling in on a week to week basis when needed. Like it's usually the case you have a young guy that's not ready yet for week to week, or you have to sign one of those Jones/Croker players from somewhere else for more money than they should be on. Once the young guys are ready they will take over, otherwise the Bears and PNG will happily snap up all our cost effective yet experienced guys.
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Not a bad thing to have one or both knocking around with the nsw cup side either, we haven't had a lot of experience in the forwards around that side in a long time.
 
Owey said:
Not a bad thing to have one or both knocking around with the nsw cup side either, we haven't had a lot of experience in the forwards around that side in a long time.
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Exactly. Good teams have depth. We can't complain about not having depth and then wanting to get ship off every single bloke that doesn't happen to look like a potential rep player. Not everyone is destined for that. Eventually the young guys will overtake a Jones and Croker, when they're ready. McEwen is already on the verge, ESL won't be far behind either you'd think.
 
That was my point, experience to start, Jones is a better 2nd row than middle and Croker is good at 13, let’s start with them and make the young guys perform to oust them, have high hopes for McEwen, Hopwood, ESL etc but not sure they are quite ready, hope they prove me wrong.
 
jamesgould said:
I don’t think anyone mentioned getting rid of them? My issue is the amount of first grade they’re playing, for me they’re not week in, week out first graders.

Nor did I say a bunch of kids should be elevated ahead of them just because.

Sorry I have offended the Jones & Croker esquire support squad.
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Im with you mate. I like them as players, but if we are a serious first grade team they are not in our FULL STRENGTH 17. They are excellent injury cover players in that they have enough FG experience now, and they are safe enough the plug a hole.
Also, Im starting Mcewen next year. He definitely played too much FG last year, but I rekon he was in our best few players for many games regardless. He was also clearly underage / young and gassed out a few times, and I think we get the benefit of him going through that last season, this season. He will have another pre season under the belt, be a year older etc. If Holbrook thinks he needs to be a 60 minute player as part of his progression, id rather frizell start and then move into the FR rotation after 20 mins.
 
Les Misérables said:
Obviously Jones isnt a starting middle, but his form the last couple seasons, particularly last season, as a middle forward have been well and truly FG standard imo.

Do we think Croker is the preferred middle between the two? I reckon Jones is the better player. Perhaps doesn't have as much footy in him as Crokes, but Jones has a fast PTB, he's fast and chews off his 6-7m prior to contact faster than Croker, he has more penetration post contact and he is a better support player. Not much between them defensively
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Yep this, Croker just gets folded I'm the contact all the time.

Brodie has definitely been running harder and having more impact these last few seasons
 
jamesgould said:
I don’t think anyone mentioned getting rid of them? My issue is the amount of first grade they’re playing, for me they’re not week in, week out first graders.

Nor did I say a bunch of kids should be elevated ahead of them just because.

Sorry I have offended the Jones & Croker esquire support squad.
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Yep they are good clubmen , comfortably in our top 30 for backup . But they will never be in our top 17 if we are pushing for a premiership!
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I don’t think we can rule out Hopwood cracking the bench rotation, maybe not straight away but by the end of the season. his improvement arc has been pretty obvious and he’s going to add a lot more size and strength over this next pre-season.
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How old were Hass and Carringon when they started being FG regulars?
 
frankLauda said:
How old were Hass and Carringon when they started being FG regulars?
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Haas debuted at 18 and was pretty much a gun by 19

Carrigan was like 20/21 and took a couple years before he was a 'starter'

Hopwood is advanced, but we should protect him not rush him. Ideally, he plays light minutes until he's 20.
 
krustykraz said:
Plenty were saying the same about Josh King.

He started in a GF this year, not bad. Many of our players would benefit from some better coaching.
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There’s a big difference between King and those two. King struggled when he was juggling study, work and training all at once. As soon as he went full-time training he improved a lot. I was surprised we got rid of him when he’d finally come good. Not to mention he was still only early 20s

Croker and Jones are 26 and 27 respectively. Maybe they’ll benefit from new coaching but ideally I think if we’re going to do anything this year, the younger more athletic guys need to leap frog them. I saw Hopwood interviewed on the news and he was pretty adamant he wanted to lock down a Top 17 spot this year.

Crokes especially had a very poor season. There was just too many occasions when someone just ran straight through him like he wasn’t there to score a try.

AOBs horrid game plan that had them spending most games defending their line did them no favours but I can’t see any rapidly improving.

Shame always though Brodie in particular had something about him, but unfortunately we only over got small glimpses of it, never a full repeat performance of that blinder he had against the Sharks.
 
Tbh the only reason we are talking about these two is because our main team was so poor we relied on them. Behind any decent functioning forward pack either of these two fit in and do a job. Marzhew is the same he’s not great but our team needs him so much for his carries even though he’s crap everywhere else. If Holbrook can bring the team up and bring depth Marz will be in reserves and these guys will be good depth bench players.
 
The problem we have with crokes and Jones is that they are footy players. Aob hindered everything the whole team did. You've just got to give guys free tickets to play footy sometimes. Billy used to harp on about crokes ability to pop an offload whilst being surrounded by 4 blokes. Have we seen that?.....nope. Billy also used to harp on about Jones ball play ability......have we seen that in grade? Mmm nope.

You've got to let blokes be flexible in the way they play. Put cuffs on and they play like they did last year. Allow them to play before actually thinking about it and they'll be unpredictable. NRL is all about being unpredictable with a side of structure. Not the other way around
 
danknights said:
The problem we have with crokes and Jones is that they are footy players. Aob hindered everything the whole team did. You've just got to give guys free tickets to play footy sometimes. Billy used to harp on about crokes ability to pop an offload whilst being surrounded by 4 blokes. Have we seen that?.....nope. Billy also used to harp on about Jones ball play ability......have we seen that in grade? Mmm nope.

You've got to let blokes be flexible in the way they play. Put cuffs on and they play like they did last year. Allow them to play before actually thinking about it and they'll be unpredictable. NRL is all about being unpredictable with a side of structure. Not the other way around
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Coaches job is to assess what the teams strengths are and set a game plan that capitalises on that.

That was my biggest criticism of AOB, he arrived with a game plan he knew worked at Melbourne and the Roosters, and tried to force it here. And never stopped trying to force it here. I recall AOB once saying about how he had coached at Melbourne and Roosters and how he just needs to make that work here or something along those line. Not the I've been to grand finals comment, this was another one.

Anyway, those clubs are chock full of talent from top to bottom and wing to wing. From the cleaner to the CEO all taking the steps to be successful.

He took the Knights coaching position thinking this will be easy, I can come in and drive standards, turn this team in to a defensive powerhouse and play grinding arm wrestle footy and it will be great. He didn't have any back up plan when that was not going to work, and just kept at it as he has no other ideas.

He sent an under strength Knights team out, missing most of our starting pack, to try and out grind grinding specialists. That right there shows he has nothing in the coaching kit bag, no thoughts of his own, just copy and paste coaching.
 
Kurriboy said:
Coaches job is to assess what the teams strengths are and set a game plan that capitalises on that.

That was my biggest criticism of AOB, he arrived with a game plan he knew worked at Melbourne and the Roosters, and tried to force it here. And never stopped trying to force it here. I recall AOB once saying about how he had coached at Melbourne and Roosters and how he just needs to make that work here or something along those line. Not the I've been to grand finals comment, this was another one.

Anyway, those clubs are chock full of talent from top to bottom and wing to wing. From the cleaner to the CEO all taking the steps to be successful.

He took the Knights coaching position thinking this will be easy, I can come in and drive standards, turn this team in to a defensive powerhouse and play grinding arm wrestle footy and it will be great. He didn't have any back up plan when that was not going to work, and just kept at it as he has no other ideas.

He sent an under strength Knights team out, missing most of our starting pack, to try and out grind grinding specialists. That right there shows he has nothing in the coaching kit bag, no thoughts of his own, just copy and paste coaching.
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This is as close to 100 percent accurate as it comes. Great plan at Melbourne and Roosters, but we are Newcastle.
 
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