2025 pre season thread

Seano said:
The Knights were at the longest odds on Betfair to win the title at 90s a couple of days ago, now since the Francis Molo blow-up the Dragons have moved out to 100 (although so have the Raiders for some reason).

The Dragons were short a middle before this blow-up which looks like an untenable situation so for those worried we're potentially going to get Lodge because of the relationship with POS, it's increasingly likely the Dragons will come in for him again (Liam Knight is also a prop without a gig having missed out on the Superleague with most team quotas full).

BTW according to Michael Carayannis it's not an issue with the coach so it seems likely it's either a playing group fallout (although his brother is also in the team), an issue with the club over money/contract or some other club has been in his ear which would be interesting given that's a breach of the rules.

Edit: Officially Molo has been described by the club as on a "mental health" break (I hope he's OK) and there have been discussions about a release, either way, it doesn't sound like he'll be at the club this season.
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Lets face it, outside of a few teams your probably just throwing your money away anyway.
 
Melbourne seems like the red-hot favourites, I can't discount the Panthers but Laui & JFH should be the outs that finally slow them (I hope), you'd think the Broncos with their list and a quality coach will be up there but otherwise yeah I'm not sure many other teams are in with a realistic chance.

As for the Knights, not super optimistic about our chances this year (my old man has us winning it but he has said that every year including 2016) but I am optimistic about the direction the club is headed.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1882262479226478593

NRL put a graphic of the "official" top 30. Frizell isn't on the list which I can only assume is an error, but more interestingly they included Cody Hopwood and Siteni Taukamo, who up until now have both been presumed to be development/supplemental players. With those 2 + Frizell factored in it makes 31 players though so something has been messed up somewhere.
 
NRL cut a lot of staff at the start of last year.
I suspect they kept the young people with keyboard skills and got rid of the people with "corporate memory" who knew how to compile lists and get them right.
Anyway, whether it's because they have too few staff or kept the wrong ones, you can't rely on them being right now.
 
mullenmagic said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1882262479226478593

NRL put a graphic of the "official" top 30. Frizell isn't on the list which I can only assume is an error, but more interestingly they included Cody Hopwood and Siteni Taukamo, who up until now have both been presumed to be development/supplemental players. With those 2 + Frizell factored in it makes 31 players though so something has been messed up somewhere.
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I’d say you answered it, Frizell in with Hopwood and Taukamo development so it’s 29 + 2 development
 
It's not impossible that Hopwood has trained well enough to go top 30 this year.
He was very much part time and doing his HSC last year, and still outplaying guys in under 19s and schoolboys games that were top 30 and training fulltime. He played prop for about 70 minutes against a very strong PNG team, while other middles who had done NRL pre-seasons did much less minutes and did a lot less work.
He is just a bit younger than the Safs were when they debuted, and a lot fitter than they were when they played Flegg before doing a pre-season and getting a round 1 debut.
Not saying he will, because we have literally heard nothing about how he is going, but he wouldn't be the first to debut at 18.
 
There’s several confirmed development players not listed (biggest name being Tyrone Thompson) so I don’t think it’s that straight forward. It’s meant to be the top 30 list specifically. Accidentally leaving someone off isn’t that strange but ADDING two new names that otherwise wouldn’t be there is clearly intentional in some way. Don’t know what the explanation is but it’s weird.
 
I could have sworn that Hopwood was already added to the top 30 squad a few months back?

I also thought McEwen was on a development contract?
 
Seano said:
Melbourne seems like the red-hot favourites, I can't discount the Panthers but Laui & JFH should be the outs that finally slow them (I hope), you'd think the Broncos with their list and a quality coach will be up there but otherwise yeah I'm not sure many other teams are in with a realistic chance.

As for the Knights, not super optimistic about our chances this year (my old man has us winning it but he has said that every year including 2016) but I am optimistic about the direction the club is headed.
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As much as JFH and Luai are massive, massive losses, honestly I found 2024 the most ominous finals series of the lot in this Penrith regime. They didn’t even play that well until the grand final, and then in the grand final itself, I felt like the game was over at 10-6. Melbourne could keep up with them for a half hour, and this is a team that absolutely scythed through every other team it played in the finals. Penrith handled them so ruthlessly, had complete control over the game after they rode out Melbourne’s opening salvo & always looked so comfortable and like they knew exactly what they were doing at all times.

In the interviews afterward I swear five of them said “muscle memory” when asked to explain how they controlled Melbourne with their defence & yardage game.

It’s honestly like no other team can go through the process of learning how to win big games because Penrith have gotten too good at winning. In a rational world, arguably the best prop in the game + an Origin five-eighth should be losses which can’t be recovered from. But they seem to defy rationality.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
As much as JFH and Luai are massive, massive losses, honestly I found 2024 the most ominous finals series of the lot in this Penrith regime. They didn’t even play that well until the grand final, and then in the grand final itself, I felt like the game was over at 10-6. Melbourne could keep up with them for a half hour, and this is a team that absolutely scythed through every other team it played in the finals. Penrith handled them so ruthlessly, had complete control over the game after they rode out Melbourne’s opening salvo & always looked so comfortable and like they knew exactly what they were doing at all times.

In the interviews afterward I swear five of them said “muscle memory” when asked to explain how they controlled Melbourne with their defence & yardage game.

It’s honestly like no other team can go through the process of learning how to win big games because Penrith have gotten too good at winning. In a rational world, arguably the best prop in the game + an Origin five-eighth should be losses which can’t be recovered from. But they seem to defy rationality.
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If they make the Grand Final again, it's tough to see them losing. I think the way the streak would end is they go out is stumbling in the finals, taking it a bit lightly.

Still my favourite for 2025, though.
 
Cleary is the weak point for their streak. Injury at the wrong end of the season, or a season ender and they are done.

I don't wish that on the bloke though.
 
last reports I seen both Hopwood and Taukamo were both Dev/Sup contracts and Friz is obviously in the 30 with 1 top squad spot still left open like AOB has done every season since being here
 
Interesting that the Warriors are ranked 16th and yet people have suggested the Knights pick up a 30-year-old TMM...been very unlucky with injury but I'm not convinced he's ever going to consistently reach his potential.
 
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