2023 Recruitment & Retention Thread

Maxibon said:
So this means we might actually get Hastings
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Sounds like the club will get him if they push for it.

I think he’s on $500K for next year, I’d be surprised if the Tigers would pay any freight and Gus Gould came out and said on Twitter the Dogs have $800K in space for 5 players next year, which means they literally can’t afford him short of shedding a big salary because the minimum per player is $110K or something like that.

Whereas the Knights would have that easy and could likely outbid anyone except the Dolphins if there was any sort of fight over him.

If I’m running the Knights I agree to take on that last season of the Tigers deal then assess how he is around the boys in pre-season. If it seems like he gets on okay with his teammates, I would probably start trying to extend him right away. Cos that’s the only question mark, is he gonna divide the playing group - I have no doubt about the effort he’ll bring on the field on a weekly basis.
 
Said only last week week there was definitely a vibe coming from tiger town that they are happy to see the back of Brooks and Hastings, even with no one to immediately fill the gap.

But from the Knights side it seems everything has gone very quiet on targets for 2023, other than pushing to get the poms here early.
The optimist in me hopes that's because they've decided to punt AOB and are going to wait until they get a new coach to see who they might be able to bring with them.
 
Matty23 said:
I could honestly care less about the fact that Manly or the Chooks weren’t fond of Hastings. He’s a competitor and he gives a f*** for the jersey he plays in. That’s what we need and want in a player.
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Exactly! And I think the club has realised that, the players we have signed (Elliot and Hetherington) both care about the jersey and play each game to the best of their ability.
 
slotmachine said:
Said only last week week there was definitely a vibe coming from tiger town that they are happy to see the back of Brooks and Hastings, even with no one to immediately fill the gap.

But from the Knights side it seems everything has gone very quiet on targets for 2023, other than pushing to get the poms here early.
The optimist in me hopes that's because they've decided to punt AOB and are going to wait until they get a new coach to see who they might be able to bring with them.
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Matty23 said:
I could honestly care less about the fact that Manly or the Chooks weren’t fond of Hastings. He’s a competitor and he gives a f*** for the jersey he plays in. That’s what we need and want in a player.
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Yeah Tigers sound keen to punt Brooks and Hastings and start again, and there’s all this **** about Benji et al trying to lure Moses and Teddy back… and they’ve already signed Woods. So their recruitment strategy is literally to try and turn back time and correct the mistake of making Brooks the #1 retention priority of their Big Four?

I mean I commend the ambition of trying to get Teddy and Moses back. It’s delusional about where they’re at as a club, but it’s definitely ambitious.

As for what it means for us:

Door #1 is a guy who looked like he was about to become a top tier halfback, whose career than gradually nosedived and tailspinned, and now he’s only looked good when his halves partner or lock did all the hard work of organising for him so he could throw some nice passes… but he’s still lost them some games for with some astounding stupidity. But maybe you can spray enough pixie dust on him to fix him?
$500-700K depending on how much freight the Tigers are willing to pay.

Door #2 is a guy who’s proven he can steer a side around, isn’t afraid of the big moments, has the highest work rate of any half in the comp, is a proven winner albeit in a lower tier league, taking a side from the relegation zone to a grand final… but he has some chequered things in his past and there’s whispers about him being a bit of a ****** behind the scenes.
$500K.

Is it even an argument?
 
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Well we are no chance of signing a half from the top of the comp.

Munster is available, I doubt he even considers us seriously. I don't blame him.

Practically every name we are linked to this place is yeah nah, we should go for this guy instead. Unfortunately we cant just sign whoever we want.

Hastings is effort, effort is what we lack.

If this guy and a few other signings are effort and longer minute players, perhaps overall the squad improves in this area.

We already have a squad that should be competing with majority of teams, yet we don't have the drive to bother.

We should be competitive with all teams except maybe the top 6 as we are right now. That leaves 13 teams we should be competitive with. How many are we actually competitive with? Im thinking 4. That has to change.

Sign a half that can steer the team around, and sign effort players. Hastings is both.
 
I had to get over that Keeley used to drop the ball in pressure situations when he was in Mathews. It drove me nuts, but you could see he had a lot of game.
This year he learns to hold the ball and he's a standout in Ball, Flegg, SOO and even went OK in his game of reserve grade.
Bit of a Steve Simpson vibe about him.
 
Billy said:
I had to get over that Keeley used to drop the ball in pressure situations when he was in Mathews. It drove me nuts, but you could see he had a lot of game.
This year he learns to hold the ball and he's a standout in Ball, Flegg, SOO and even went OK in his game of reserve grade.
Bit of a Steve Simpson vibe about him.
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We could use a Steve Simpson give right now
 
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