2023 Recruitment & Retention Thread

Maxibon said:
There is no upside at the Dolphins..... Milford is from Brisbane and knows Wayne can get the best out of him so that would've made his decision easier, but the playing roster at the Dolphins is pretty bad.
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It's a hard task to recruit with one year notice. Their improvement will come in the coming years as more and more players come off-contract.
 
To be honest, Dolphins have probably given Milford stupid money to get him.

He has shown us that we need an actual organising half, but we can do better I think.
 
Nobody shoot me for asking this but what do people think about Gareth Widdop as a short term solution to our gap in the halves? He’s off contract this season at Warrington and has plenty of FG experience. There aren’t any genuine quality halves free until 2024 so why not give him a 2 year deal, first choice next season then a good back up the season after when we secure a longer term solution (ever the optimist!)

Thought?
 
So more Crossland and Mann in 2023, everyone should just take a year off.

Close this forum down as it will be nothing but *****ing at each other by round 4 lol

Horrible top 30 coming next year... Only 21 signed so far!

1 Tyson Frizell 2023
2 Jake Clifford 2023
3 Adam Clune 2023
4 Bailey Hodgson 2023
5 Hymel Hunt 2023
6 Brodie Jones 2023
7 David Klemmer 2023
8 Kurt Mann 2023
9 Chris Randall 2023
10 Enari Tuala 2023
11 Dominic Young 2023
12 Bradman Best 2024
13 Mat Croker 2024
14 Dane Gagai 2024
15 Jacob Saifiti 2024
16 Leo Thompson 2025
17 Jayden Brailey 2025
18 Adam Elliot 2025
19 Jack Hetherington 2025
20 Daniel Saifiti 2026
21 Kalyn Ponga 2027

Dolphins need a new winger I would say Lee will retire now.

No chance this club will retain or sign new talent coming bottom four and with KP laughing in pressers after having 40 put on us two weeks in a row.

It's a retirement village turned collect your (overs) paycheck for little effort club.

A lot of players off contract next year, can the club replace them with anyone better though?
 
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Thieves Like Us said:
Nobody shoot me for asking this but what do people think about Gareth Widdop as a short term solution to our gap in the halves? He’s off contract this season at Warrington and has plenty of FG experience. There aren’t any genuine quality halves free until 2024 so why not give him a 2 year deal, first choice next season then a good back up the season after when we secure a longer term solution (ever the optimist!)

Thought?
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Could definitely have used him this year.

He’ll be 34 shortly after the next season starts, my only concern is those veteran half signings never seem to go very well for us.
 
jamesgould said:
Could definitely have used him this year.

He’ll be 34 shortly after the next season starts, my only concern is those veteran half signings never seem to go very well for us.
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Appreciate the reasoned response James.

He was making noises about wanting a return to the NRL earlier in 2022. I wondered why we didn’t go for him?

He wouldn’t be on Pearce money and would bring heaps of experience.
 
Thieves Like Us said:
Appreciate the reasoned response James.

He was making noises about wanting a return to the NRL earlier in 2022. I wondered why we didn’t go for him?

He wouldn’t be on Pearce money and would bring heaps of experience.
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There is no one else available, so a year's contract guiding us around the park may not be the worst idea while we keep looking.

I was thinking about Brooks as well, who I certainly am not wanting here, but if we did go for him, I'd look at one year at most and see how he goes with the tigers tipping in plenty.
 
Thieves Like Us said:
Nobody shoot me for asking this but what do people think about Gareth Widdop as a short term solution to our gap in the halves? He’s off contract this season at Warrington and has plenty of FG experience. There aren’t any genuine quality halves free until 2024 so why not give him a 2 year deal, first choice next season then a good back up the season after when we secure a longer term solution (ever the optimist!)

Thought?
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No reason to shoot you mate, he was a good player in his day. He just used to get injured all the time and my suspicion has been that he went to England to play in a league which is a bit less physical. It looks like he’s been pretty good for Warrington but has also missed a fair few games for them.
 
Frank McWilliams said:
Our sole recruitment should be 6 & 7, get them both, quality then look for other positions, 8-13 look ok but 1-5 is a bit suss.
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I reckon if giving any attention to recruiting outside backs and forwards makes them unable to effectively recruit halves at the same time, our recruitment staff should probably be fired.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
No reason to shoot you mate, he was a good player in his day. He just used to get injured all the time and my suspicion has been that he went to England to play in a league which is a bit less physical. It looks like he’s been pretty good for Warrington but has also missed a fair few games for them.
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Just so everyone knows, Widdop dislocated his shoulder 2 weeks ago and is out for the rest of the season.
 
I notice the Wynnum Manly under 20s side that Michael Dobson is coaching had an 18 try 100-0 win this week and are now top of the table, hoping to match their minor and major premiership wins from last year.
I don't know if he is bringing any of those players with him, but a few good halves would be nice.
 
I’ve gone back and watched some of Jackson Hastings’ games from this year and I reckon there’s a ceiling on how good he can ever be as a player due to two factors, 1. a lack of pace & elusiveness, and 2. I’d describe his kicking game as “functional” rather than really good - like, I would say his choice of option is usually pretty smart, but he doesn’t have the momentum-changing kicks which flip the field that you frequently see from Cleary, Reynolds & DCE in his kit bag, as far as I can see. Like he knows what he can do and plays within that so if you get frustrated by conservative kicking he might annoy you.

But he’s incredibly vocal on field, unselfish to a fault - always looking to create space for others first and look for the killer pass himself second - and hyper-competitive with a huge motor, leading every kick chase, taking hard runs himself when forwards or backs are being slack, etc. He’s just constantly “on”.

In short he’s the player most of us probably wish Mitch Pearce evolved into with us and I reckon he’d be a huge fan favourite if we picked him up. I would be very on board with us pursuing him.

If Clifford hangs around, could potentially revive his career too given he thrived as the “support” playmaker under a ball dominant #7 and a fullback who takes on a bigger playmaking load than most. Would allow him to just focus on playing his role.
 
Yeah Hastings is the halfback we need, he’s not scared to have a go at a player for being lazy, etc.
He apparently has two choices to be starting halfback: Knights and Bulldogs

Would you rather play with a spine of
1. Averillo
6. Burton
9. Mahoney
OR
1. Ponga
6. Pryce? Mapapalangi? Asi?
9. Brailey

In my opinion we have the better fullback and hooker but we are still in need of a 6 if Hastings joins us..
 
Mahoney and Brailey are neck and neck for mine, but in terms of the attacking weapon he’d have to work with, Ponga leaves Burton and Averillo in the shade.
 
Asi is a talented player that has potential to be a regular first grader. One of the biggest question marks on him is his application. Payten has previously come out saying his attitude wasn’t the greatest at training and then it was backed up by Brown I believe not long after Asi joined the Warriors. Said he needed to be more consistent at training and then in games or something along those lines.
 
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