2023 Recruitment & Retention Thread

Teams will definitely have a game plan to run at him in attack if he's playing 5/8. But your right felt like he found his groove and to become that elite F/B.
 
All talk seems to be about Ponga 1 or 6 and a need for a f/b and edge fwd but going through the squad are we ok with hooker, yes Brailey is good his back up is Randall but don’t see anything further, Huth had form but is he contracted in anyway. Think we could do with bit more depth at 9
 
Frank McWilliams said:
All talk seems to be about Ponga 1 or 6 and a need for a f/b and edge fwd but going through the squad are we ok with hooker, yes Brailey is good his back up is Randall but don’t see anything further, Huth had form but is he contracted in anyway. Think we could do with bit more depth at 9
Click to expand...
Huth is signed with Cessnock I believe.

I think our pecking order at hooker is;

Brailey
Randall
Mann
Crossland
Kobe Rugless
Riley Jones
Noah Naigolivia

maybe Gamble might have a crack at hooker to get a firstgrade game as well.

Randall is as good a backup hooker as you can expect for minimum wage. If we replaced him with another specialist hooker, you wouldn't get a better one unless you wanted to pay a lot more.

Mann and Crossland and possibly Gamble are emergency cover who would get us out of trouble for a few games.

Rugless, Jones and Naigolivia are three very different young hookers. One of them might get some bench time if we're desperate.
 
Ethan said:
Didn't he only drop that one ball in the whole world cup , if im remembering right thats pretty good especially for a 20 yr old .
Click to expand...
he dropped a few at the world cup. Its something he really needs to work on.

Just to clarify, i'm not saying Dom is terrible, he is one of our best players. I was referring solely to the dropped bomb against England as being terrible. It was a basic kick, not overly high. One that anyone on here would have caught. Those are the drops he needs to get out of his game.

You would have noticed the good sides last year start targeting him at the end of the season as he would randomly drop one.
 
Billy said:
Huth is signed with Cessnock I believe.

I think our pecking order at hooker is;

Brailey
Randall
Mann
Crossland
Kobe Rugless
Riley Jones
Noah Naigolivia

maybe Gamble might have a crack at hooker to get a firstgrade game as well.

Randall is as good a backup hooker as you can expect for minimum wage. If we replaced him with another specialist hooker, you wouldn't get a better one unless you wanted to pay a lot more.

Mann and Crossland and possibly Gamble are emergency cover who would get us out of trouble for a few games.

Rugless, Jones and Naigolivia are three very different young hookers. One of them might get some bench time if we're desperate.
Click to expand...
Yeah I think people are probably happy to ship off Randall, but honestly for a backup minimum wage hooker I don't think you're really going to get much better. Can play 80, defends all day, not the best but definitely not terrible in attack. Just shouldn't be a first choicer, which was our fault for not bringing in a temporary guy to play out the season when Brailey went down. I'd keep Randall around until one of the young guys really shows he's ready to take his place.
 
Maybe only having a minimum wage backup is a bad idea when your first choice has played less than 50% of the games since getting here? You don't get extra points for playing a bad player just because he's cheap.
 
Last edited:
But if Brailey went down early season for long term, more than half the season, would we want any of those listed to be our 9. Randall and to a lesser extent Mann can cover short term but wouldn’t like either long term
 
Adam Elliott was better at hooker for Canberra than Randall too.

We lack spark and creativity from dummy half even at full strength. Rugless being on the development list hopefully means they think he's close to ready. Jones is an impressive athlete but don't think hooker will be his position longterm. I've been most impressed with Nailagolia of the ones mentioned and he looks physically more ready than most 9s his age but he seems to be down the pecking order. Temple Kalepo has re-signed and could be a wildcard.
 
He's very good in other aspects, playmaking isn't a strength. I'd take (in no order) Mahoney, Smith, Grant, Korisau, Cook, Robson & Blayke Brailey comfortably ahead of him which would put him as the 8th best in the comp.
 
mullenmagic said:
He's very good in other aspects, playmaking isn't a strength. I'd take (in no order) Mahoney, Smith, Grant, Korisau, Cook, Robson & Blayke Brailey comfortably ahead of him which would put him as the 8th best in the comp.
Click to expand...
Yeah I dunno about cook anymore. His definitely a shadow of his former self. Those quick PTB he gets he doesn't engage like he used too. Maybe it's because he is the starter but his gone backwards for mine.
 
mullenmagic said:
He's very good in other aspects, playmaking isn't a strength. I'd take (in no order) Mahoney, Smith, Grant, Korisau, Cook, Robson & Blayke Brailey comfortably ahead of him which would put him as the 8th best in the comp.
Click to expand...
He is better than Mahoney, Cook, His brother and Robson.


Smith, Grant and Korisau are the only hookers better then him.
 
The exciting thing for me is that we will have a young team. Our signings (young, hodgeson, KPP, Pryce) have all been in the 18-21 age group. Our leaders (Brailey, ponga, Hastings, etc) are all around 24-26. Gone are the times when our recruitment strategy was signing 32 year Olds. Should se some success over the next few years imo.
 
Krambach said:
The exciting thing for me is that we will have a young team. Our signings (young, hodgeson, KPP, Pryce) have all been in the 18-21 age group. Our leaders (Brailey, ponga, Hastings, etc) are all around 24-26. Gone are the times when our recruitment strategy was signing 32 year Olds. Should se some success over the next few years imo.
Click to expand...
Jamie Buhrer is still only 32 or 33
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top