2023 Recruitment & Retention Thread

The best back up hooker is probably Jayden Berrell (Sharks, off contract at the end of this year). 27 year old career reserve grader who’s never been given his shot in the top grade.

The most hyped young guys currently stuck behind established players are Peter Mamouzelos at Souths (signed till the end of 2024), and Blake Mozer at Brisbane (signed till the end of 2025).

Best hookers who can be signed for 2024 are Berrell, Jacob Liddle, and Tom Starling.

I would lean towards trying to loan Mamouzelos as the first option - I think he’s gonna be a gun, but there is no prospect of him playing regular first grade any time soon as Cook never seems to get hurt, and at 31 he’s probably got at least a few years left in him as a first grader. If all goes well, try to parlay that into an early release and a signing for next year. Brailey is going to miss most of the next pre-season so we should be planning for him to *not* be an 80 minute hooker next year - such a huge ask fitness wise, he’s already looked off the pace compared to his 2021 form at times this year.

Second choice for me is probably Berrell. I’m not a big believer in Mozer from what I’ve seen. If Brisbane does give him his shot soon, that’s probably something to monitor given it might mean there’s question marks over Paix going forward.
 
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The Knights will put the word out they’re open for business to pretty much every manager today and then from there it’ll be who can realistically be released. I think we may be better served trying to ride out the next 6-8 weeks as teams find themselves out of finals contention. The trend the last few years has been for teams out of contention to release a player or two so we may get lucky there.
 
I don't know if Mitch Henderson has ever tried playing hooker. I've seen him play 1, 6 and 7 and he's one of the better defenders in our junior system and has trained with firstgrade for the last few pre-seasons. He looks the same build as most hookers, and has all the skills and is pretty fit.
All our other young halves are lanky guys well over 6' for some reason. None of them look like hookers.
 
I think we’ll stick with Mann and Crossy for a good few weeks and hold out for a decent option. Gamble an option there too if either of above are injured. Club needed to have a young up and coming 9 as a priority signing this yr anyway, as none of the juniors seem to be going on the up. Noah, Kobe, Jones (injured) Kalepo (coming back from bad back injury) just not there.

I had Crossy and Mann as being released end of year. Now typically they are playing well in a good performing team. Do the knights we any of mentioned junior 9’s pushing for a bench spot next yr? If not might need to go for a quality recruitment. Possibly England too.
 
Billy said:
I don't know if Mitch Henderson has ever tried playing hooker. I've seen him play 1, 6 and 7 and he's one of the better defenders in our junior system and has trained with firstgrade for the last few pre-seasons. He looks the same build as most hookers, and has all the skills and is pretty fit.
All our other young halves are lanky guys well over 6' for some reason. None of them look like hookers.
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Can’t keep turning 7’s into makeshift 9’s. It’s why we haven’t had a good half come through in yrs. Well one of. Put effort into Jones, Noah, Kobe or Kalepo. Or go poach a talented junior.
 
I like the manly back up hooker he is signed till 2024 though in the trials he killed it I like berrell to he has been good for the last few years if you could get Tom starling from Canberra he would be ideal imagine him taking off after one of our forwards got a quick play the ball with ponga and miller hanging around the ruck at Parra they have Mitch rein there he is probably the only one we could get with hands and Hodgson in first grade but haven't seen much of Mitch for the last couple of years probably could be a handy back up
 
I personally wouldn’t mind bringing Tom Starling back since he did play for us and made his debut in the last round in the 2018 season against St George Illawarra.
 
Owey said:
One of 6he weirdest debuts ever. It was like "hey, check this bloke out who isn't big enough for first grade"
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I was at a reserve grade trial in Murwillumbah against the Titans where Tom played his first game of seniors.
Some guy sitting behind me went on and on about how the little guy warming up was going to get killed against their players.
Long story short, Tom murdered them, sat all their big forwards on their backsides and tore them apart in attack, and I got a write up in the local paper as, "the grey haired Knights fan who cheered for crowd favourite Tom every time he made a break". I think I was sitting behind the reporter and blew out his eardrums, but I was really giving it everything to shut up the loudmouth behind me - who slinked out before fulltime.
 
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