2020 Pre Season and Trial Games

Scott Dureau was saying he didn't think Star was going to make it through his first training session for under 18s and he was probably 15kg smaller than he is now when I first saw him at the start of last year.
Also, if he made a long distance break he usually got run down because he ran out of puff, and was no good for 10 minutes after a big run.
He has come a hell of a long way in 2 years.
 
Toa's intercept try showed some skill, a lot of people go for them but not many actually stick the catch. I would say Best is in front for mine but he has had a bigger sample size.
 
Billy ..The penny panthers are off loading R C Gillard and are going
to help what ever team pay a percentage of his contract ..the
Eels seem like there getting a free run.. do you know why or a guess why the knights aren't havin a crack when R C G
got family in our town.
..
 
Justajoe said:
Billy ..The penny panthers are off loading R C Gillard and are going
to help what ever team pay a percentage of his contract ..the
Eels seem like there getting a free run.. do you know why or a guess why the knights aren't havin a crack when R C G
got family in our town.
..
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I'd like to get him, but we need someone for nearly every position except prop right now.
If we sign a big name player, it should be someone who can play 5/8 and win us a game or two if Pearce is out.
 
Billy said:
I'd like to get him, but we need someone for nearly every position except prop right now.
If we sign a big name player, it should be someone who can play 5/8 and win us a game or two if Pearce is out.
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Agree we need a 6 But a half priced prop or secondrower at a half price discount would have a Raiders look about our team..thanks for the reply joe
 
Both. Positions are there for them to be a given a good crack. Like to see Talty and Croker get a run too
 
In last year's schoolboy tour there were 3 young Knights fighting for centre positions.
Best, To'a and Timanu Alexander.
Alexander got the centre spot in the test.
This year he looks bigger and slower, when playing between injuries.
I won't be surprized if he trains as a forward for under 20s next year. He played 1 or 2 games at second row this year.
 
Haven't really seen enough of them to get a good idea but Best is likely to end up in the forwards not too far away.
 
Best is just a natural athlete.
He was an Australian champion beach sprinter at under 14 level.
The story was he played for our under 16s as a 14 year old and because of his size and build the coach had him in the forwards.
When Scott Dureau took over the under 16s he noticed how fast Best is, and moved him to fullback.
We won the under 16s title with Best destroying opposition teams as the fullback who crashed through the outside backs like a flying prop forward.
He was due to start his first year of under 18s at fullback, but he was injured, and they gave the spot to a kiwi named Star Toa, who did so well that when Best game back they kept Toa at fullback and dropped Best into the centres, where he thrived as well.
Honestly, Best would thrive in any jersey from 1 to 17 with the possible exception of 7.

My belief is that the position that would make the most of his size, speed, strength and agility would be wide running second rower of the Bob McCarthy/Paul Sironen style - or we could just leave him as a giant centre.
 
To'a, Sasagi and Christian Ma’anaima named in the junior Kiwis side.
I think all 3 have played in Kiwi agegroup sides before, but the two odd things about Christian Ma’anaima being selected is he was a wing or centre last time he played for the kiwis and is now a giant prop - and he is the second best Kiwi under 20s prop at the Knights behind Daniel Ticehurst, who wasn't selected.
 
Billy said:
So we've all seen Best and To'a play now.
So who's team Bradman and who's team Star?
Bradman is bigger, younger, faster and stronger, but the most important skills for an outside back are speed off the mark and sidestep, and Star has Brad covered for both those.

I think Brad - he's a freak.
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Yeah, Best has shown he's a special player. How would they go as a centre/wing pairing with an off-season to gel?

Taking Ponga out of the discussion for the moment, is Best suited to play fullback at this level? I'd love to see him hitting the ball up on kick returns, no doubt he'd bust plenty of tackles and attract plenty of defenders. Imagine having Lee and Toa sniffing around him waiting for an offload during broken play :dude:
 
Best is the current NSW under 18s fullback.
I thought Coach Ennis in his first coaching gig with NSW under 18s cost us the game with his plan of getting the ball to a charging Best whenever we were in scoring range. Queensland were ready for it and handled Best well.
But Best looked good having a lot of big runs - he just needed someone else to do something too.
 
With his speed and fend and our lack of centres I'd be trying him there to start with. We have some ok backrowers and some potentially good ones. Sort through them first
 
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