2022 Knights Recruitment & Retention Thread

Naden is a big talent, just depends if we want to take a risk on a guy who might get himself banned from the sport one day.

Tuala & King are keepers if they stay cheap. Don’t try and outbid anyone though.

Kurt Mann is the tough one, definitely I think we should hold off on negotiating with him, see if Simi can make him redundant. Between his salary & Eddie’s there should be enough money to make a fair offer to a good outside back who’s ready to be a difference-maker right now. And yeah if Kurt leaves I think Randall or say a Matt Croker has earned a top 30 spot.

I think Phoenix will not be offered a new top 30 contract at this stage.
 
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Owey said:
What are the thoughts on bringing Brent Naden back? If we can keep him out of trouble off the field, he'd offer us strike on the field. I'm still annoyed he didn't get a chance under Brown.
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I wish him well, but we don't need his particular issues here.
 
What we’re seeing from Brodie so far feels game changing. I was thinking the club should look at upgrading the forward depth (looking at the likes of Thomas Mikaele - high upside emerging talents - and Siliva Havili - versatile do-a-job guy who would be suited to starting at lock to protect Connor). But Brodie looks so well suited to being the starting 13, strong, defends well, and crucially has a nice pass on him. Fills that need and also looks like he has a lot of utility. The kind of player great teams always seem to have.
 
Oh, and one more question, with the kids in reggies going way better then I thought they would, which of those guys come through into the top squad next year? Jaron Purcell looks an obvious future top grader to me, but Ben Talty might get there first on what he is producing. Matt Croker looking good? What would Dylan Lucas have to do to get a chamce? Any others standing out?
 
Owey said:
Do we even need a new centre? Will Tuala, Young or Sasagi nail down that spot?
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We don’t know. Tuala has not been very good this year. Young could be six months or two years away. Sasagi is a utility who prefers playing in the halves.

I like Gagai for us because he can slot straight into the centres and then if someone like Young demands selection, you can just move him to the wing and he’s equally good (arguably even better). So he competes for spots with everybody in that three quarter line at the same time - steel sharpens steel. And he *may* accept a little less for a homecoming.

Going into next year, Hymel Hunt is the second best outside back at the club. I like Hymel a lot. I think he’s a very handy player. But at a contending club he’s the kind of guy who’d be the fourth or fifth best outside back, not the second best.
 
Jaron's defensive stats are a bit ordinary, but he is our youngest reserve grader and his first game of reserve grade this year was his first game of seniors. He has plenty of time to fix that.
Ben Talty is like a younger version of Fitzgibbon. Runs hard, scores tries, makes mistakes.
Lucas seems like a guy who will keep trying hard till he makes it, and he has plenty of talent.
Matt Croker will take his chance when he gets it, either here or somewhere else.
 
Owey said:
Oh, and one more question, with the kids in reggies going way better then I thought they would, which of those guys come through into the top squad next year? Jaron Purcell looks an obvious future top grader to me, but Ben Talty might get there first on what he is producing. Matt Croker looking good? What would Dylan Lucas have to do to get a chamce? Any others standing out?
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I like the look of Croker a lot. I think he can develop into a very good workhorse, kind of guy who can replace a lot of what we get from big Klem on way less money. I love Klemmer but ideally if we get our pathways right we should never have to pay huge huge money for a guy to come and fix our yardage issues ever again.
 
The two under 19s players named in the reserve grade team this week were halfback Zane Camroux, who played fullback in reserves according to the team list, and fullback or centre Christopher Veaile, who was 18th man in reserves.
Both those guys did a full firstgrade pre season and played trials, so they joined the under 19s halfway through their season. I expected them to make a massive difference in under 19s, but they made little impact.
Veaile was a big try scorer in under 16s and a big part of the team winning the title, but I think he only scored 1 try in under 19s after a firstgrade preseason. He is a tall, athletic and fast fullback or centre.
Camroux is usually a 6 or 7 with a good kicking game. His highlight reel from Wests is pretty impressive and we seem to have signed him to replace Jonah Pezet, who was poached by Melbourne. He is a decent half, but hasn't been able to drop into our system and be immediately successful. Our Ball side missed the finals this year - the same squad that was unbeatable in under 16s with Pezet putting on a masterclass every week.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing Dylan Lucas become the outside backs Josh King. He is a fan from Wollongong who basically drove up here, knocked on the door and wanted an opportunity. His stats on reggies are massive againntjis week. If he got a shot at the top grade and showed he could do a job when required, he'd be a solid, cheap depth player for a long time.
 
The Safs and Hoy have all expressed their love for the club, stated they want to play out their careers here and said they'd stay for unders. Good roster management is to oblige them without slapping them in the face with too lowball an offer.
 
All these suggestions I'm making are designed to fill the top 17 with as much quality as possible, some of which you have to pay market value for. I don't think we have to pay overs any more. But it gives you guys under the top 17 who you can rely on to do a job when they get a chance without having to pay a top 17 salary to a depth player and more guys in you top 17 who are top quality in their position. The other consideration is not blocking a top quality junior's path to the top grade. You generally get a couple of years of real value out of a junior bursting on the scene, but if they are special, you need the cap space to upgrade early once the offers starring coming in from elsewhere.
 
If I was to do a power ranking of which players were likeliest to replace Pearce & Green (and Mann) as our starting halves next year if we had to choose right now, I’d be betting on Clifford 7 Hoy 6. There’s something there with Hoy, no he couldn’t replace KP at 1 but he seems like he has a really good attitude and mindset. Not a “something from nothing” freak like KP but he looks to me a bit like a Jahrome Hughes, if you simplify his role, put bodies in motion around him and give him license to take the line on, he has enough X factor that he can pretty consistently make things happen in attack. Also got a huge boot on him from what I’ve seen. That’s my main takeaway from what I’ve seen of him - he’d be better in the halves.

Haven’t seen Bailey yet mind, but he’d have to be the second coming of Matty Bowen for me to even consider moving KP away from fullback.
 
Owey said:
Oh, and one more question, with the kids in reggies going way better then I thought they would, which of those guys come through into the top squad next year? Jaron Purcell looks an obvious future top grader to me, but Ben Talty might get there first on what he is producing. Matt Croker looking good? What would Dylan Lucas have to do to get a chamce? Any others standing out?
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As soon as I read this I immediately thought of Dylan Lucas and Mat Croker. Those two seem to be some of our more consistent week-to-week performers in Cup. Lucas’ stats this week speak for themselves and IMO Croker should’ve definitely got a development deal again this year which still baffles me as to why he didn’t.
 
I think either Tupou or Ikuvalu from Roosters would be good pickups. Tupou off contract this year and Ikuvalu at end of 2022. Tupou getting a bit older but still a tall, experienced winger who would be a good target for whoever is in our halves. Ikuvalu (if Roosters were open to moving him on) is also experienced, can fit anywhere in 2-5 but is stuck behind a star-studded Roosters backline. Neither would be overly expensive I don’t think.
 
I’d be very surprised if Tupou ever plays for a club besides Easts.

Ikuvalu is a very strong yardage guy but I feel like he’s known to be fairly error prone & that I think why he’s been behind plodders like Ryan Hall a lot of his time at Easts. But I think he’s better than Shibasaki, he very often puts up games where he runs for 200m+ and isn’t quite on Gem’s level of butterfingers-ness.
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
We don’t know. Tuala has not been very good this year. Young could be six months or two years away. Sasagi is a utility who prefers playing in the halves.

I like Gagai for us because he can slot straight into the centres and then if someone like Young demands selection, you can just move him to the wing and he’s equally good (arguably even better). So he competes for spots with everybody in that three quarter line at the same time - steel sharpens steel. And he *may* accept a little less for a homecoming.

Going into next year, Hymel Hunt is the second best outside back at the club. I like Hymel a lot. I think he’s a very handy player. But at a contending club he’s the kind of guy who’d be the fourth or fifth best outside back, not the second best.
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Do you remember how Gagai's D was absolute rubbish when he was here before ...NO THX . Tuala has done nothing wrong this season so far and Young would have played regular first grade this season no chance is he 2 yrs away .
 
Gagai had some bad moments defensively when he was young, for sure. He’s a much better defender than Tuala now though. It’s not particularly close. That’s what experience does. There’s not a lot of outside backs who defend well before they get a good 50 games of first grade in. It’s hard out there!

Dom is what we call a classic “project player”. If you wanna talk defensive issues, he was totally lost in our game with us. Not having a go, it’s a huge ask for anyone to come over from England and instantly adjust to the pace of the game and the way Australian teams attack, especially when you’re still a teenager. No way in the world was the club thinking he’d have to play first grade as early as he did. He’s literally still growing into that body and it’s entirely possible he’ll get too big to play that wide & end up breaking into grade properly as a bench impact forward anyway (the one thing he’s been able to do against men easily from the jump is get those long arms free for an offload and that would be absolutely lethal when you have guys like Connor & KP sniffing around). It’d be a mistake to have any pre-conceived notions of what a 19 year old “outside back” who’s already as big as David Klemmer is going to be in this sport.
 
The Cheese ripping into Zammit on national television.

Cowboys poster with inside info on the club has previously posted that the club chose not to keep him on board not that he left at his own accord.

Cheese might of just backed that up with what he said on the Matty Johns show.
 
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