2025 Season

HarVeeGee13 said:
Sandon is good, he’s looked like a threat to put his man clean through every time he’s thrown a short ball as they go through the gears in attack. He compresses the defence and flows into his spot in shape very intelligently. Also does throw a very nice pass out of dummy half. Been noticing that.

Very good goalkicker too.

I think he’s just surplus to needs at the Roosters but the dude can play. If we had him available to play 7 this year instead of Cogger we’d have been much less frustrated about our halfback I reckon.
Click to expand...
He's a busy man, too. Following the ruck, reading the play, digging deep into the line and timing his pass based on what the defence is doing. Every time. Brilliant half.

He'd do a job for us at 7.
 
Yeah I’ve seen some people say “if he’s good, why are the Roosters letting him look elsewhere/signing DCE?”. First of all, they did try to extend Sandon this year, he said no, whereas it sounds like Savala is going to agree to an extension. But also this is just what happens at these top clubs where they have a lot of good young prospects. It’s easier for them to keep a lot of them (as opposed to us when we got Pearce & Watson, everyone with ambitions to be a halfback looked for the exit door very quickly), hard to keep all. Some guys want to stay at the top club, some just have that ambition to prove themselves & play first grade every week. It’s like saying Scott Drinkwater is crap because Melbourne gave him an early release too.

They’ve used Sandon as a 7, 6 and bench hooker. Next year they’ll have Walker, DCE, Robson, Savala, Toby Rodwell, Jake Elliott, and that young hooker Benaiah Ioelu, who agreed to a four year extension with them. That’s a hell of a lot of depth & I’m sure Sandon’s agent told him he’d get a good financial offer elsewhere too (which has now happened). Something’s got to give at some point, even at a club with a mostly theoretical salary cap.

Also not some huge insult to sign DCE over the top of their kids. Daly even at his age is still really good, I think people are overstating his decline, $500K is a steal for the player he still is, and I’m willing to bet he looks a lot better next year than he did at Manly. Their young forwards and backs have gotten way better as the season has gone on so he’ll be playing downhill most weeks. I actually disagree with people saying they’re making the wrong decision bringing him in, Teddy is still so good it’s almost malpractice not to be competing for a premiership with him, and it’s a lot easier for a club like that to get back to the top of the mountain very quickly.
 
Toohey said Sandon Smith was once in our system.
He joined the CC Roosters to play Ball in 2021.
I've looked for him in our Johns and Daley and Mathews sides in 2019 and 2020 and can't find him - so maybe he just trained with us.
Anyway - it was a long time ago.
 
I think he was “in our system” in the sense that clubs count everyone who participated in a junior clinic or two with a club as that, so you can report a big number in your junior participation.
 
Les Misérables said:
He's a busy man, too. Following the ruck, reading the play, digging deep into the line and timing his pass based on what the defence is doing. Every time. Brilliant half.

He'd do a job for us at 7.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure why he’d play 7 mate. Every time you have a chance to play a 6 at 7, a 1 at 6, a 7 at 9, and a 9 at 13, you just have to do it.

Nah I do think they intend to stick with Brown 7 Fletch 6 over the pre-season and first few rounds at least, but if they were 1000% confident in it, no chance at all they’d consider changing that, definitely don’t think Sandon is who we’d be signing.
 
If we do get Smith, very interesting with a new coach coming in. He would have to be on board with “the plan”.

He’s a busy player moving both sides of the ruck. DB from what I’ve watched just seems to stick to his side. I really hope we get him, I see a quality player. Funny I checked his stats from the game he only had 19 fantasy points. Savala had 68.
 
I’d say that’s a perfect example of why fantasy points are not a good measure of player effectiveness. He was instrumental to the space they found out wide. There’s no Fantasy stat to measure this.
 
Crazy to think about the Dragons went from a Qld and Australian rep who in his last season recorded 30 try assists and guaranteed double digit try assists a year to a guy that has only gone double digit in try assists once in his entire career and will never rep anything.

That’s such a huge downgrade it’s actually insane, perks of having your father as the boss I guess
 
The attrition rate has been crazy this year & is going to have a real impact on the finals. The only team in the comp to have their spine miss zero games is Cronulla I think.
 
Just with the broncs/storm game.

That kick where coats caught it and was taken out. Bronco defender tackled him in the air, the refs find that penalty against us every time.

Melbourne giving away endless 1st tackle 6 against, no sin bin. Broncs got done though, as Carrigan said, Melbourne had 8.
 
Nelson is going to get suspended.

A season like this is why I always say to win a comp you don’t actually have to get right up to the point of being the best team. Just get to a point where you’re making top four a bunch of times in a row and if you keep doing that it only needs to break your way once. People have forgotten this because Penrith keep winning every year but with how busted Penrith were in 2021 Souths really should have won and would have if Latrell wasn’t such a dope.

This year at full strength IMO Melbourne are the best team in the comp, but they are going to be well below full strength when it counts. The Bulldogs have a great shot at going straight to a prelim next week and in a normal year I don’t think this team gets that far. They’ve gimped themselves this year with the Galvin/Sexton and Mahoney stupidity.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Nelson is going to get suspended.

A season like this is why I always say to win a comp you don’t actually have to get right up to the point of being the best team. Just get to a point where you’re making top four a bunch of times in a row and if you keep doing that it only needs to break your way once. People have forgotten this because Penrith keep winning every year but with how busted Penrith were in 2021 Souths really should have won and would have if Latrell wasn’t such a dope.

This year at full strength IMO Melbourne are the best team in the comp, but they are going to be well below full strength when it counts. The Bulldogs have a great shot at going straight to a prelim next week and in a normal year I don’t think this team gets that far. They’ve gimped themselves this year with the Galvin/Sexton and Mahoney stupidity.
Click to expand...

Which is why I say the next step for us is to push up in to the top 4. Anything can happen from there.

Some players are very superstitious. If they do something one week and play well, they tend to keep doing it.

Walsh might need to get a glass next time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top