2024 Recruitment and Retention Thread - Rebuild 2: This Time It’ll Work For Sure (Unironically)

Joshhh said:
Agreed that he doesn't owe us anything, has no ties to the place at all. But I wouldn't say he was already done when he got here. He was not a finished product when he first got here and no matter how incompetent you think the Knights are, you can't tell me he didn't learn anything in two years of training in a professional NRL club setup for the first time coming from England.
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I'm sure he learned, the same as he learned from his time in the UK, and would have learned from his time in any NRL squad playing NRL.

Point is, he wasn't as green as people make out when he arrived here. And he really doesn't owe us any loyalty. We need to work to keep him and pay him his worth.
 
Dom doesn't "owe" us, but no other club is giving top 30 contracts to 19 year olds who aren't even rated at their English clubs.
When we signed him I asked about him on a Huddersfield forum and the only reply I got was he was a good buy if we are fans of dropped balls. They weren't upset to lose a guy who had played 2 ordinary games of firstgrade.
Alex McKinnon made it all happen, to the point of putting him up in his own house when he arrived - just on his belief that Young was an athletic freak.
Everyone else buying English players are buying guys in their 20s who have already made a name for themselves in the ESL.
Only we are giving multi year top 30 contracts to kids.

Having said that, he worked hard, improved his fitness, put in the work and got up to NRL level, and plenty of other guys wouldn't have done that, so it's his efforts that made it happen.

The only good call we made was to move him from centre to wing, and that was an obvious move I think.

At the time it seemed like madness to give 2 of our top 30 spots to unproven teenagers from England in Hodgson and Young. Most people thought Hodgson was the most likely to succeed, but even he was a crazy gamble. Plenty of people on here questioned the move, and rightly so. we won the lottery with Dom.
 
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Billy said:
Dom doesn't "owe" us, but no other club is giving top 30 contracts to 19 year olds who aren't even rated at their English clubs.
When we signed him I asked about him on a Huddersfield forum and the only reply I got was he was a good buy if we are fans of dropped balls. They weren't upset to lose a guy who had played 2 ordinary games of firstgrade.
Alex McKinnon made it all happen, to the point of putting him up in his own house when he arrived - just on his belief that Young was an athletic freak.
Everyone else buying English players are buying guys in their 20s who have already made a name for themselves in the ESL.
Only we are giving multi year top 30 contracts to kids.

Having said that, he worked hard, improved his fitness, put in the work and got up to NRL level, and plenty of other guys wouldn't have done that, so it's his efforts that made it happen.

The only good call we made was to move him from centre to wing, and that was an obvious move I think.
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If I remember there were a number of clubs chasing him storm among them, but probably not willing to throw the money and a top 30 contract at him.
 
frankLauda said:
So DY is signed for next year and 24? Obviously he gets an upgrade. Just offer what a top line winger is worth, hopefully he stays.
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He's only signed for 2023 and can talk to other clubs from Nov 1st.
I suspect we'd have already extended him if his manager hadn't told him to see what offers he gets.
 
I'd say Dom has come on faster than most people thought he would. Of course we are going to have to pay more to keep him, he has earnt that though and I'm sure the club knows that. It's now just a decision on what he is worth on the open market and what he is willing to take to stay with us.

I'd still like him to work on his hands, he still drops too many kicks and passes for my liking
 
Maxibon said:
I’d say that Dom will stay, he says he loves the place. Also his mates KPP and Pryce are coming in 2024.
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We are in a very strong position to extend him.
I assume he is signed for minimum firstgrade money for 2023, so we are in a position to give him an immediate payrise if he signs for a few more years, so if we offer him say 400k for the next 3 years (1.2 mill), others will have to offer him 500 or 600 from 2024 to match that.
 
Billy said:
Dom doesn't "owe" us, but no other club is giving top 30 contracts to 19 year olds who aren't even rated at their English clubs.
When we signed him I asked about him on a Huddersfield forum and the only reply I got was he was a good buy if we are fans of dropped balls. They weren't upset to lose a guy who had played 2 ordinary games of firstgrade.
Alex McKinnon made it all happen, to the point of putting him up in his own house when he arrived - just on his belief that Young was an athletic freak.
Everyone else buying English players are buying guys in their 20s who have already made a name for themselves in the ESL.
Only we are giving multi year top 30 contracts to kids.

Having said that, he worked hard, improved his fitness, put in the work and got up to NRL level, and plenty of other guys wouldn't have done that, so it's his efforts that made it happen.

The only good call we made was to move him from centre to wing, and that was an obvious move I think.

At the time it seemed like madness to give 2 of our top 30 spots to unproven teenagers from England in Hodgson and Young. Most people thought Hodgson was the most likely to succeed, but even he was a crazy gamble. Plenty of people on here questioned the move, and rightly so. we won the lottery with Dom.
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What they said about him on the site means nothing though mate I was on the Doggy's Kennel before Klem signed with us and he was a world beater in there opinion .. BUT as soon as he signed with us, he couldn't break the line couldn't tackle couldn't pass couldn't do anything ... 2 days before he was the best prop in the world what they say means nothing ...
 
Wish I shared the optimism re: keeping Dom. He was ambitious enough to leave his life behind and move halfway across the world on his own to make the most of his career. If and when he gets offers from actual competent and successful teams I don’t know why he would settle for being poorly used in a bad team. Not to say we don’t stand a chance, but from his perspective I don’t know why he would turn down similar or more money to stay.

That’s not even factoring in foreign rugby clubs who would be licking their lips watching him playing for England.
 
The moment he started performing we should've begun conversation about an upgrade and an extension. He's hardly missed a beat and has continually improved, quickly from game to game. What possible benefit could there be to waiting?
 
Our ace in the hole with Dom is that we are the only club who can sling him a payrise from next week - if he signs for 2024.
I think we'll keep him for at least 2024 unless someone wants to pay him stupid money - and maybe someone will.
 
Les Misérables said:
The moment he started performing we should've begun conversation about an upgrade and an extension. He's hardly missed a beat and has continually improved, quickly from game to game. What possible benefit could there be to waiting?
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that's assuming we haven't been trying to resign him.

Dom and his manager may have decided to wait, backing himself to perform, increasing his price

We can't always blame the club for everything. Admittedly they have done a lot wrong in the last 10 - 20 years, so it's an easy assumption
 
I think we have to be careful with Dom and we don’t overpay on the back off his breakout season.
How much should we be offering him?
I would be happy to keep him for around 400k a season for the next couple years.
Addo-Carr who has played consistently for many seasons could only managed to get 500k a season from a team that finished with the wooden spoon.
Far too often we see young players burst onto the scene then struggle with the week to week grind of the NRL.
Sione Mata'utia is a prime example. His first year was his best season by far.
Opposition teams will also do their homework coming up against Young.
I would like to see how Young goes next season before throwing big money at him.
 
Can't see why Young can't be a marquee centre. We could comfortably pay him $400k. He is so important to our team, even from the wing.

Easier to find a good winger than a good centre.
 
He will get even less ball at centre. I would personally keep him on the wing. I don’t see why he can’t be our Corey Oates.
 
Oliver said:
I think we have to be careful with Dom and we don’t overpay on the back off his breakout season.
How much should we be offering him?
I would be happy to keep him for around 400k a season for the next couple years.
Addo-Carr who has played consistently for many seasons could only managed to get 500k a season from a team that finished with the wooden spoon.
Far too often we see young players burst onto the scene then struggle with the week to week grind of the NRL.
Sione Mata'utia is a prime example. His first year was his best season by far.
Opposition teams will also do their homework coming up against Young.
I would like to see how Young goes next season before throwing big money at him.
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I can't hate the careful approach and there are definitely plenty of good examples of this type of thing going wrong but IMO he's too important to us to let go.

There's a few things that I think set Dom apart from those examples:

1. Dom is quite possibly one of the greatest athletes the game has seen, sounds like an outlandish statement but he really looks like someone cooked him up in a lab. 200cm tall, 108kg, only Josh Addo-Carr gets to a higher top-speed in the entire code, has a brilliant workrate for a 21yo and doesn't shy away from tough runs.

2. He appears to have the right attitude and determination to make the most of those athletic talents, from memory articles in pre-season had him coming 2nd/3rd in terms of aerobic fitness testing only behind blokes like Ponga. That's a pretty obscene feat for a man that large with the fast-twitch composition he obviously has given his sprinting prowess, can only demonstrate that he's working harder than basically everyone else in our squad. Furthermore he made the big decision to leave his family and move across the world to a competition that would allow him to fulfill his potential, that's a massive thing for a 19yo to do without any promises of success and no doubt a modest contract at the time.

3. His starring performances in a side that struggled as much as we did this year. Dane Gagai, an incumbent Origin centre coming off the best season of his career looked like a bloke who'd played his whole career in reserve grade for most of the season - Gags was subject to the same environment as Dom, playing on the same edge outside the same halves yet he was absolute rubbish 90% of the time. 21yo Dom on the other hand went from strength to strength embarrassing Gags the entire season, imagine the things he could do in a half-decent side. In fact we don't have to imagine as we're now seeing him lineup for England and he's put in outstanding performances with 6 tries from 3 matches including the warm-up vs Fiji. Now obviously they've played against some lesser teams amongst that but the Samoan backline is effectively Penriths and he outshone all of them in the WC opener.
 
I noticed at halftime of the England v Greece game KPP and Dom sitting next to each other really chatty and friendly. Hopefully all the English recruits coming will help sway his decision to stay with us. We might have to pay slight overs to keep him though? With reports Melbourne and Dolphins chasing him. What are we paying for a top line winger? I think we might need to pay $500 for him, 3 year deal.
 
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