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

Junior_rep said:
I had some early Mail about Oryn Keely signing with Dolphins weeks back it’s all but confirmed now.
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Good luck to the young bloke. If we've signed Rahme from Souths, then it'd be tough for Oryn to crack the side with Friz, Lucas, KPP, Cartwright, and Rahme all in the mix. Plus Myles Martin there too. Hope he kills it up there.
 
The only thing I can think of for us not being keen on Keeley would be if that neck injury he had a few years ago might mean there is some doubt about his longterm fitness.
 
Man this is disappointing. Really liked what I saw of Keeley, great aggression. I’m wondering if the likes of McEwen coming along might ease losing a local junior. If McEwen keeps building he is the aggressive runner we’ll be looking for, where-as Keeley doesn’t have the line breaking ability. Yet.

Pretty torn on this, I dare say we would have wanted to keep Keeley of course, it the offer from Dolphins would have been hard to knock back.
 
With Frizell, KPP, Lucas and Cartwright all contracted to the end of 2025 at least, if I was his agent I would be advising him to take the Dolphins’ offer. It sucks but we beat the Dolphins to KPP’s signature last year, so we can’t complain too much…
 
BTP said:
Man this is disappointing. Really liked what I saw of Keeley, great aggression. I’m wondering if the likes of McEwen coming along might ease losing a local junior. If McEwen keeps building he is the aggressive runner we’ll be looking for, where-as Keeley doesn’t have the line breaking ability. Yet.

Pretty torn on this, I dare say we would have wanted to keep Keeley of course, it the offer from Dolphins would have been hard to knock back.
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What is drum on McEwen. I haven't heard of him
 
Roundtable said:
What is drum on McEwen. I haven't heard of him
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I haven't heard the story of how he came to be at the Knights.
He played for Penrith in Mathews 2 years ago and for us in Mathews last year.
He played in Ball this year - a year young - and was obviously a standout. He made the City under 18s side as 18th man and also the NSW under 19s side.
He played Flegg after Ball finished and looked right at home at that level.
He is a hard running second rower now, but I think he'll turn into one of those shortish, solid and mobile props that are doing so well since the rule changes.
 
BTP said:
Man this is disappointing. Really liked what I saw of Keeley, great aggression. I’m wondering if the likes of McEwen coming along might ease losing a local junior. If McEwen keeps building he is the aggressive runner we’ll be looking for, where-as Keeley doesn’t have the line breaking ability. Yet.

Pretty torn on this, I dare say we would have wanted to keep Keeley of course, it the offer from Dolphins would have been hard to knock back.
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The irritating thing for me is that over the last 5 or so years when lots of clubs identify their best and brightest and have plans to develop them into the top 30 we seem to supposedly not be identifying the right kids as most we have had in the development spots have always been let go before they make top 30 or make it but never kick on
Need to hope that we have turned the corner there
 
Billy said:
I haven't heard the story of how he came to be at the Knights.
He played for Penrith in Mathews 2 years ago and for us in Mathews last year.
He played in Ball this year - a year young - and was obviously a standout. He made the City under 18s side as 18th man and also the NSW under 19s side.
He played Flegg after Ball finished and looked right at home at that level.
He is a hard running second rower now, but I think he'll turn into one of those shortish, solid and mobile props that are doing so well since the rule changes.
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He came to the Knights through wests rosellas as he apparently found himself in the wrong circles in Penrith and moved up here with family for a chanhe
Went from 17s to 19s to reserve grade there in weeks and then moved to Knights I think once clearances processed

Nice young kid when I met him the few times
 
knights80 said:
The irritating thing for me is that over the last 5 or so years when lots of clubs identify their best and brightest and have plans to develop them into the top 30 we seem to supposedly not be identifying the right kids as most we have had in the development spots have always been let go before they make top 30 or make it but never kick on
Need to hope that we have turned the corner there
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In fairness, we're elevating a bunch of juniors into the 2024 squad. We've also recruited prized juniors (who've either debuted for us or had only played a handful of games beforehand) from other clubs, including Ponga, Dom, Gagai, Leo, Barnett and plenty of others I'm sure I've missed.
 
Utilities seem to be a thing next year.

I don't really know the two poms, but I believe;

Pryce plays fullback, 5/8 or centre.

KPP plays second row or centre.

David Armstrong plays fullback, wing or centre.

Dylan Lucas plays centre, second row, wing and years ago he was a 5/8.

Gamble plays nearly anywhere over the years.

Hastings has played a lot of different positions.

Elliot plays lock, second row, prop and hooker.

Crossland plays 6, 7 and 9.

Cogger played a bit of hooker this year and was a 7 as a junior, but has mostly been a 6 in seniors.

Riley Jones played everywhere as a junior. This year he was a hooker in reserves who moved to centre when his other hooker went on. He is a 6' 3" hooker who is as fast as any centre or wing and was mostly a 5/8 or centre or even a fullback in Flegg.

Brodie Jones - played prop in Mathews - played 5/8 in Ball - played second row in reserves - O'Brien seems to think he can play centre, but also that he is now a middle forward.

Croker - never saw him play anywhere but lock or prop over about 7 years of lower grades, but now he seems to be our backup second rower.
 
knights80 said:
The irritating thing for me is that over the last 5 or so years when lots of clubs identify their best and brightest and have plans to develop them into the top 30 we seem to supposedly not be identifying the right kids as most we have had in the development spots have always been let go before they make top 30 or make it but never kick on
Need to hope that we have turned the corner there
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In Keeley’s case, whilst I really REALLY liked him. I can see Lucas is of the same mould and between he and KPP have a mortgage on position. I’d be happy to not have bought Cartwright and left that position for Keeley to take, guess they wanted some guaranteed experience as backup. Cartwrights contract could have been a depth prop over a backrower

But I’d personally have Keeley over Croker in talent ceiling. Love Croker but he hasn’t grown heaps, makes no meters. Showed some footwork at the line and a great ability to offload but doesn’t showcase it enough.

Keeley has a unique football aggression and good line run. You need that natural aggression, too many players happy to plod along.
 
I wonder if a big preseason for Croker can get his body into better shape for NRL. I am unsure of the specifics but didn’t he debut after not having a first grade preseason. I know for sure he was a second tier player when debuting in 2021. If that were to be the case and 2024 was his third preseason, that generally seems to be the time players really kick on. Hopefully this is the case for Croker.
 
to my eye (although it may be too early to tell) Keeley and Croker are both smaller builds but dont seem to have that extra athleticism to bend the line back in offence and defence like a cotter or liam martin can. The new archetype of this small hypermobile middle forward is not just an undersize prop its and undersized prop who still makes meters, hits hard and can do the extras in the middle. I honestly dont think either of them showed glimpes of that, although like I said havnt had much opportunity to watch Keeley but if he wasnt doing that in NSW cup he defiently isnt going to do it in NRL anytime soon
 
nighttiime said:
to my eye (although it may be too early to tell) Keeley and Croker are both smaller builds but dont seem to have that extra athleticism to bend the line back in offence and defence like a cotter or liam martin can. The new archetype of this small hypermobile middle forward is not just an undersize prop its and undersized prop who still makes meters, hits hard and can do the extras in the middle. I honestly dont think either of them showed glimpes of that, although like I said havnt had much opportunity to watch Keeley but if he wasnt doing that in NSW cup he defiently isnt going to do it in NRL anytime soon
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Keeley?
The guy who made his debut at 19 and is still young enough to play Flegg next year?
The guy I watched in a Flegg game at Cessnock last year start on the bench because he had played reserve grade the day before and, because we were losing the game, came on and scored 2 tries by just being unstoppable at Flegg level from 10 out, then limped off to nurse all his bruises?
He played SG Ball last year - and Flegg - and reserve grade - and firstgrade - and NSW under 19s where he was best forward on field.
He didn't take to reserve grade as a 19/20 year old as well as I hoped this year, but 2 or 3 guys who came through the system with him played their first game of Flegg this year, and hope they might get picked for Flegg again next year.
 
Love to know the story with Keely, played NRL in 2022 and fell down the pecking order this year. Must have been doing something wrong. The fact Lucas went so far past him is interesting.
 
Quinny said:
Love to know the story with Keely, played NRL in 2022 and fell down the pecking order this year. Must have been doing something wrong. The fact Lucas went so far past him is interesting.
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To be fair I think Keely's debut in 2022 was a function of circumstances more than anything else.

Believe he'd only played 1 or 2 NSW Cup games before that debut and he only got a start because Friz pulled up injured in the warm-up. Playing against the Dragons this year made more sense because he'd played Cup all year and started to find his groove a bit.
 
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