2026 Season

Sua Fa'aologo 194 metres 5 line break assists 1 try assist 2 tries.

It's been forced on them by the circumstance of Pappy retiring on them, but once again it feels like the answer they've come up to to "which potential future spine player should they hold onto?" out of Sua, Jonah and Tyran Wishart, is going to be the correct one. Just like how holding Jahrome Hughes & Pappy over Drinkwater, Hynes etc was the correct call.
 
It's not just that Bellyache consistently gets the best out of players, he let Papi go and moved NAS on despite both potentially still having plenty of good footy in them, having quickly realised their hearts weren't in it. He really is up there with Bennett for man/roster management skills...something that AOB apparently didn't learn on his way to multiple premierships.
 
Well, he was still contracted, and without being privy to what went on behind the scenes, the Storm publicly, at least, were very supportive. I don't imagine every club, whether they had a ready-made replacement or not, would do the same.

But it is an example of why the whole "contracts must be enforced" stance is nonsense. Situations and circumstances change. It has to be case by case.
 
I don't think you get what I'm saying. Any player can literally just extinguish their active playing contract at any time if they voluntarily choose to retire and forego the remainder of the salary. He can't make a comeback during the duration of the contract he was previously signed to, so it's not some clever loophole a player can use to retire at Wests and then make a surprise unretirement at the Roosters a day later. But that's how it works, a bigger proportion of player retirements (not medically forced) happen with the player still with year(s) to go on their deal than you're thinking. It just doesn't usually happen when the guy is 27.

Yeah I guess you could argue they technically "granted him the release" before he definitively dropped the "I think I'm retired" on that podcast, but genuinely, if a player doesn't want to play anymore and is happy to say bye bye to the money, you can't actually make them keep playing.
 
100%, which is why I've always been anti the idea that every contract must be honoured. It's situational.

But in Papi's case, the Storm/Bellamy didn't **** and moan and at least publicly put pressure on him; I can't imagine Flannagan, for example, doing that with a star player deciding to retire...if he had a star player.

With NAS, Bellyache realised he still wanted to play footy, but seemingly only on his terms, and that doesn't fly at the Storm.
 
What are peoples thoughts on,
Roosters v Warriors?

Roosters are notoriously slow starters but have a stacked team.
Warriors at home but missing a few.
 
I think the Roosters should win the comp this year on paper so you’d think this wouldn’t be a tough one, but as you say under Robbo they often start weirdly badly.
 
Seano said:
It's not just that Bellyache consistently gets the best out of players, he let Papi go and moved NAS on despite both potentially still having plenty of good footy in them, having quickly realised their hearts weren't in it. He really is up there with Bennett for man/roster management skills...something that AOB apparently didn't learn on his way to multiple premierships.
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Bellamy puts old Wayne in the shade in every area. Look what Bellamy has done this year with relatively no name in the majority of his squad. The results speak for themselves.
Old Wayne is still trying to build a team of great players and Bellamy’s lot will put them to the sword this year.
Bellamy first, daylight second and old Wayne in the middle of the followers.
 
Shouldn’t be shocked at all by this but god damn the back rowers Lisati and Chan both looked sick. Both sides of the ball. It’s like Bellyache cooks up edge forwards in a lab. Their question mark is still how their middles hold up against Penrith/Brisbane etc but I look forward to another season of them theoretically having massive weaknesses turn into “oh no they can just easily smash half the teams in the comp again”.
 
Yeah, it's a shame Bellyache isn't involved with NSW this season. Not that his assistance was able to arrest last season's disaster, but regardless of whether he's there or not, it seems that Loz is almost certainly going to pick the wrong players in the wrong positions and get out-coached by Billy....again...so maybe it's for the best when NSW will probably be looking for a new coach for 27.
 
Seano said:
Yeah, it's a shame Bellyache isn't involved with NSW this season. Not that his assistance was able to arrest last season's disaster, but regardless of whether he's there or not, it seems that Loz is almost certainly going to pick the wrong players in the wrong positions and get out-coached by Billy....again...so maybe it's for the best when NSW will probably be looking for a new coach for 27.
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Happy to hear counter-arguments but if I was Blues coach my back rowers are Dylan Lucas and Jacob Preston.

You barely get any time in camp to work on combinations. Give your halves the best traditional edge forwards you can find, and we have the two best line runners & hole hitters in the entire league born and bred in NSW. Someone like Hudson Young is way more the “engine” of his team’s attack and instantly you’re partnering Katoa or whoever gets picked in the halves with a more idiosyncratic player who won’t happily run the lines you want. Whereas you give him Dylan Lucas or Jacob Preston and instantly it’s, ah, yeah, right, the kind of guy I’ve been playing with for years except way better.

They’re also both absolute demons in terms of work rate as opposed to Liam Martin who gets to play in a team where he’s only expected to run for 50m a game and assault people.

There’s my two bob on it.
 
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