2022 Knights Recruitment & Retention Thread

Going to be a tough year...

Personally with John's back I'd give Mullen a deal, left foot and solid kicking game.

He got to train with the team in QLD before the final and was given a lifetime membership.

We have nothing to lose!
 
Can we please get off the idea that Mullen is coming back to play NRL first grade.

He is 34, hasn't played in the NRL in years and we don't need to be locking ourselves in to more years of underperforming burned out halves.

Time to move on to something else.

And I disagree that it is going to be a tough year. If we can line up a half that is going to contribute with a decent kicking game, able to secure repeat sets and help steer the team around that isn't cooked already. We are in front of what we had with Pearce.

A bit of luck with injuries and we can see whats what.
 
Yeah Clifford was the better of our two halves and it would be weird not to expect continued improvement. I think also Adzy/the club has given up on the idea that Kurt Mann can be a full time first grade half. I sincerely think we’re in a better spot now with our playmaking moving forward. Pearce did do well against the Titans, but in a higher speed, higher intensity game against the Eels a week later, his impact was so poor we sincerely may have won if not for him. The more Clifford and Ponga steer the ship, the better the side looks.

I do understand the trepidation - with our spine looking settled, Brailey, Pearce, Clifford & Ponga all fit going into next year, I’m sure many of us anticipated a big jump in the team’s performance. But I think we still should get better, and yeah as has been said elsewhere the expectation was that Pearce would be moving on by the end of 2022 anyway, so it’s just bringing forward an evolution which either happens now or in a year. Having settled, good options at 9, 7 and 1 is still more than half the teams in the comp can boast of, and plenty have very good sides have sort of had to “make do” with a mediocre-to-poor 4th beat spine player (usually a half, sometimes the fullback, but I think a crappy hooker is fatal to your chances personally) and still been good anyway.
 
I think the thing that separate us from the elite NRL clubs is that we don't have the same systems in place.

Melbourne, Roosters or even Souths lose a player to injury or to another club? No problem, they have a steady replacement who knows his role in the team and exactly how to execute it.
Look at Melbourne, no Munster/Hughes they'll throw in Cooper Johns, I'm not saying they look better with him in the side, but they certainly don't lose a lot.

Then there's Newcastle, who's system for 10-15 years was rely on the G.O.A.T, funnel everything into our best player. If he goes down, well I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
It's time to find some balance in our team, if that means Pearce leaving and us having to blood someone for a year, fine.
But we need to figure out where our long term spine plays on the team sheet and for me the only two spots locked in are 7 and 9.

Work out where Ponga is playing for the rest of his career and play him there now, with Johns at the club we are more equipped than ever to implement positional changes as he will be working closely with our playmakers no matter what.

I for one am over the whole "No Pearce no winning" rhetoric, it's time to put relying on our 7 in the past.
 
Patty said:
I think the thing that separate us from the elite NRL clubs is that we don't have the same systems in place.

Melbourne, Roosters or even Souths lose a player to injury or to another club? No problem, they have a steady replacement who knows his role in the team and exactly how to execute it.
Look at Melbourne, no Munster/Hughes they'll throw in Cooper Johns, I'm not saying they look better with him in the side, but they certainly don't lose a lot.

Then there's Newcastle, who's system for 10-15 years was rely on the G.O.A.T, funnel everything into our best player. If he goes down, well I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
It's time to find some balance in our team, if that means Pearce leaving and us having to blood someone for a year, fine.
But we need to figure out where our long term spine plays on the team sheet and for me the only two spots locked in are 7 and 9.

Work out where Ponga is playing for the rest of his career and play him there now, with Johns at the club we are more equipped than ever to implement positional changes as he will be working closely with our playmakers no matter what.

I for one am over the whole "No Pearce no winning" rhetoric, it's time to put relying on our 7 in the past.
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Those top sides have repeatable attacking actions they can fall back on. New players come in, they know how to hit their marks, and executing correctly leads to points.

We have Kalyn Ponga.
 
I for one don't think it's a hard decision. Ponga is always up in the line in attack anyway playing as a half, never the typical sweeping around, backing up the breaks fullback. He doesn't return the ball back anymore and his one on one bread & butter fullback tackles are usually ineffective. Move him to 6 now !!. There is no better time for a switch than when Joey himself is going to be working with the halves. Now is the time. As for fullback, look at who we have and make a decision. If we have no-one experienced enough move Gaigai.
I never understood why we didn't try to get Niho Hynes from the Storm when he came on the market. He is a Umina junior and would maybe have liked to come back home to a fulltime number 1 jersey.
 
Kurriboy said:
Can we please get off the idea that Mullen is coming back to play NRL first grade.

He is 34, hasn't played in the NRL in years and we don't need to be locking ourselves in to more years of underperforming burned out halves.

Time to move on to something else.

And I disagree that it is going to be a tough year. If we can line up a half that is going to contribute with a decent kicking game, able to secure repeat sets and help steer the team around that isn't cooked already. We are in front of what we had with Pearce.

A bit of luck with injuries and we can see whats what.
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Mate our wins without Pearce can count them on one hand!

We need a genuine half for 2022 or we come close to the spoon again, we also need a winger!

If we cant find anyone for 2022 we cant go crossland or far out mann in the halves we will be more inept in attak than this year.

Who else can we actually sign??

Mullen trained with the team this year, obviously he isnt forgotten about!
 
With Ponga's contract situation, having player options in his favour for 2023 I am assuming that he is free to negotiate officially from Nov 1.

Effectively he can field all of the offers and take his time as he has us as a fallback if he is thinking over his options.

He says he is still committed to winning a title here, yet hasn't taken up his player option for 2023 yet.

If he drags it out whilst fielding offers and dealing with his manager. It could lead him to lose focus on field, and he is already copping a bit of criticism for drifting in and out of games.
 
Billy said:
just a thought - the areas where Crossland needs to improve - self belief and game management - are the areas where Joey should be able to bring a lot of improvement out in all our young halves.
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I think he would make a great ball playing 13 especially with the pace of the game.
 
The ONLY thing for me that made the difference with having Pearce on the field in 2021 and 2022 was his LEADERSHIP...when he isn't on the field we were rudderless(excuse the pun) and leaderless.

What we found out when he wasn't there was that none of the leadership group were capable of stepping up and saying 'follow me...I know where we need to go and how to get there!'

He won't be able to do it from the coaches box or side lines...but hopefully Joey can help develop/infuse those who are given the title of 'leader' with some of the hard nosed qualities that it takes to step above being one of the boys and say 'follow me'...and when they don't, rip them a new one and let them know they are letting the team, the fans and the club down.

The most likely is Ponga but I'm not sure he has enough maturity yet to take that step up. The other who might be an option but wouldn't have been given the opportunity to prove himself yet is Clifford...with Pearce off the scene, it might be a good option to test his ability to take a formal leadership role in 2022?

If we can't find that within, we may need to recruit it when we are looking at our roster. It just doesn't stand out in the current group and that's a major deficiency at the club once Pearce departs..
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
I think Brailey should be captain personally.
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I think Brailey is a leader already by deed and action but I haven't seen him do any speaking on the field or in huddles to say that he has the ability or personality to give the team a serve when they need/deserve it.

I think he is definitely part of a leadership group but he is not THE leader of a team that we need to replace Pearce for me...as I just updated in my earlier post, maybe Clifford is an untested option that we need?
 
slotmachine said:
Or Clifford.
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Maybe not Slots and I still think it is likely to be given to Ponga...

But coming in mid season last year meant he was always going to be finding his way in the side that already had several 'identified' leadership group members, so there hasn't been any opportunity to see whether he has some ability to step up to that role.

As a half, leadership qualities are an aspect that is normally part of their junior development so I'd be interested to see whether that is a part of his make up that the coaching staff look to bring out during the off season, particularly with Pearce moving on???

I'm not saying he is a capable or suitable candidate, I just haven't seen enough of him away from Pearce's influence to know whether he has it in him. But this off season is the time to figure that out because we will definitely need somebody to step up next year and take that role on if we are going to keep moving forward as a team and a club
 
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