2023 Recruitment & Retention Thread

Walker is, perhaps, the exception that proves the rule.

But he only ended up starting because of the injuries/suspensions to Souths' starting halves. He wasn't thought of as a key singing at the time, and nobody was pencilling him into the 17.

I wasn't against letting Hoy go - he's in the bottom quartile of starting fullbacks. But letting him go when you decide to move KP out of the position in the same offseason is the exact sort of stupidity that keeps our club away from any serious contention.

I'd place bets that Gagai will be our fullback come the start of the season. We have no other real option.
 
MontyBrogan said:
He's 28 years old and has only managed 7 first grade games. Why are we all so excited about signing him? He played 7s rugby, which suggests he wasn't good enough to play the 15 man game for a country that itself isn't very proficient.

Gagai, Hodgson etc. are surely much better options at FB. Has anyone that old ever burst onto the scene positively?
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I see Miller as a stopgap for 1 season until one of Hodgson, Armstrong or Pyrce can step up in 2024.
 
BETTERTHANLEGO said:
Get wish.com Fletcher Sharpe on the weetbix and chuck him out there.
(Taking the **** btw)
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If he improves as much in 2023 as he did in 2022 we'll have to give him at least a development contract in 2024 to keep him, but like a lot of kids that have freakish pace off the mark at that age, he might lose it once he starts to bulk up.
 
slotmachine said:
Bit of chat around that George Williams might be coming back to aus.

Will be disappointing if someone snags him on similar money to what we're giving to Hastings
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He'll be $1m

But even still, why our club in all of its desperation for halves wasn't seeking those types of players, speaks to how ****ed we are generally. The Tigers reworked their entire forward pack in 4 weeks. We took 2 years to find a 700k halfback.. Frightening, really
 
MontyBrogan said:
I wasn't against letting Hoy go - he's in the bottom quartile of starting fullbacks. But letting him go when you decide to move KP out of the position in the same offseason is the exact sort of stupidity that keeps our club away from any serious contention.

I'd place bets that Gagai will be our fullback come the start of the season. We have no other real option.
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If we don’t manage to get Miller then it might force O’Brien’s hand and play Gagai at fullback.
It wouldn’t be the worst option.
You get him out of the front line of defense for starters.
You can play to his strengths which is tackle breaks with more space at the back and he’s also good at setting up his outside man.
If you look at Young’s trys from this year.. a lot came from Gagai just giving Young enough space to do his thing.
That’s where the likes of Holmes and Hammer failed at fullback. A lot of wingers turned fullback hold the ball for too long and often run their centre/winger out of space.

 
Les Misérables said:
He'll be $1m

But even still, why our club in all of its desperation for halves wasn't seeking those types of players, speaks to how ****ed we are generally. The Tigers reworked their entire forward pack in 4 weeks. We took 2 years to find a 700k halfback.. Frightening, really
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There’s no way in the world he will be getting a $1m a year deal over here.
 
Well it’s definitely getting better value out of a player on $500K+.

The question mark I have over it is that I’m pretty sure Dane only played fullback once or twice for Souths the 4 years he was there. This includes a couple of seasons where Alex Johnston played most of the games there before they got Latrell, despite Gags being the more skilled ball player. Then when Latrell went down it was always someone like Allan or Taafe filling in at 1. Possible explanations: didn’t want to mess up the chemistry of Dane’s edge; the back-up centres/wingers were worse players than their backup fullbacks. The other potential explanations are that he doesn’t like playing back there or he doesn’t quite have the fitness base to do it for a full year.

But yeah I’ve personally always thought he goes okay at the back.
 
MontyBrogan said:
He's 28 years old and has only managed 7 first grade games. Why are we all so excited about signing him? He played 7s rugby, which suggests he wasn't good enough to play the 15 man game for a country that itself isn't very proficient.

Gagai, Hodgson etc. are surely much better options at FB. Has anyone that old ever burst onto the scene positively?
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Cody Walker
 
cowboyman said:
There’s no way in the world he will be getting a $1m a year deal over here.
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Wouldn't be far off. There are approximately zero quality halfback options in the world 🌎

Any team in need of a 7 with money to spend (which is often the poor performing desperate clubs) wouldn't think twice about signing him for an amount larger than most people would think is good value
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Well it’s definitely getting better value out of a player on $500K+.

The question mark I have over it is that I’m pretty sure Dane only played fullback once or twice for Souths the 4 years he was there. This includes a couple of seasons where Alex Johnston played most of the games there before they got Latrell, despite Gags being the more skilled ball player. Then when Latrell went down it was always someone like Allan or Taafe filling in at 1. Possible explanations: didn’t want to mess up the chemistry of Dane’s edge; the back-up centres/wingers were worse players than their backup fullbacks. The other potential explanations are that he doesn’t like playing back there or he doesn’t quite have the fitness base to do it for a full year.

But yeah I’ve personally always thought he goes okay at the back.
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my big concern about moving Gagai to fullback is he gets dominated and thrown around like a rag doll when returning the ball.

That is what happened when he played a few games at fullback for us before. It gets our sets off to a terrible, slow start and we struggle.

We just need to find a fullback from another club, not look from within as there is no one in the club that can even do an adequate job at fullback at the moment
 
I always thought Gags was good running the ball back. Has a weird style where he makes a lot of tackle breaks. The only defence he would be doing is one on one which probably wouldn't be great, but at least he wouldn't be a turnstile on the edge. But yeah, fitness to do it for a full year would be a concern. The decision would need to be made pretty quickly so he could get fit enough for it.
 
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