Kalyn Ponga discussion

the holding off by the club is most likely because of the broadcast deal, it may take a month it may take 6, in anycase we have the luxary of waiting.
Given the cap is likely to go up we may be able to offer him the same wage and it will be a large reduction in the overall cap %.
If we Get it done now its a gamble that may pay off if the cap increases massively, if we wait until the broadcast deal and theres a big increase his value increases to every other club.
 
CornChippy said:
I imagine that there are clubs out there like the Dragons that would offer 1.5 mil for Ponga.

I really don't know what the club will offer because there is so much talent coming through the Knights right now. NSW cup team is ontop of the ladder.

The question is how badly do the knights need him right now?
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He won’t go to the Dragons.
 
frankLauda said:
He won’t go to the Dragons.
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No way. You can tell how he’s leading and how animated he is when we win, that he ultimately just wants to win now. He will only go to a team that he thinks are genuine contenders. Hopefully we have killer season to the point where he thinks that’s us.
 
mullenmagic said:
We're already seeing the effect of having so much tied up in Ponga and Brown. Toohey keeps saying how tight things are. They stayed clear of Barnett despite him wanting to take less to come home. They were already trying to cut Marzhew's contract, and even those talks are on hold while we count pennies further. Lucas and McEwen are going to need upgrades. JSaf and Dom are among the others who'll be free agents in November.

It's unfortunate it's taken this long to put a decent squad around him but Ponga is more of a luxury than a necessity at this stage. We could still have a very good spine without him, and a lot of money to spend elsewhere. Wouldn't get into a bidding war for him.
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With Ponga we are a premiership threat, without him we are making the 8 and more of the same.
 
Owey said:
But Sharpe DOES NOT have a kicking game. I've had to hear it all summer. Except he does. Simple question: is the team functioning well with this guy at 5/8?
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Nice little short kicking game, long kicking looks very unnatural still, and like he doesn't have a lot of control over where the ball is going to go. I'm sure it'll get better.

And yeah, it is, he's a great player. If you played him anywhere on the field he would make something good happen. He just has that gift. I feel like there's a lot of hyper-sensitivity around criticism of Fletcher, but I'm not sure where people have been unreasonable? I'm also saying that he could replace & actually improve on Kalyn in some areas at 1, is that not enough glaze?

The key point is, there will be big team balance decisions to make if we keep Kalyn, Dylan & Fletcher together, which I think you get as well as I do:

Owey said:
On the fair dinkum side of things, if we resign Ponga we may be saying bye to Best to even out the cap for a bit. Best has similar injury issues to KP. Plenty of good juniors coming through in the outside backs including a couple of potential superstars in Seve and Winter. McKewn has been earmarked as the priority upgrade right now. Best may just be a disposable luxury when the time comes.
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Yeah, so, if this is the kind of decision we'd be looking at making to keep Kalyn, I'm not convinced it's the right one.
 
Grandpa Joe said:
With Ponga we are a premiership threat, without him we are making the 8 and more of the same.
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I don't know if that is true anymore.

We are performing very well with Pongas 1.4 million of the salary cap on the sideline.

Would we be better off using that money on improving the rest of the roster?

You could go out and get 2.8 Sandon Smiths for that coin.
 
CornChippy said:
I don't know if that is true anymore.

We are performing very well with Pongas 1.4 million of the salary cap on the sideline.

Would we be better off using that money on improving the rest of the roster?

You could go out and get 2.8 Sandon Smiths for that coin.
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Could say the same about Brown . Just sayin!
 
People like to use the “if we don’t have Ponga we won’t be title contenders” and while I believe that’s wrong, you could flip it and say “if we keep Ponga but lose 2-3 of our best players to do it than we will also not be title contenders” as well we have seen it over the past 7-8 years.

Sharpe looks like he can be an Australian representative at fullback, to act like the gap is the massive is just completely false.

If we want to win competitions we need to keep the best players keeping 3 and losing 1 is better than the visa versa that’s just how it works.
 
KPGreatness said:
People like to use the “if we don’t have Ponga we won’t be title contenders” and while I believe that’s wrong, you could flip it and say “if we keep Ponga but lose 2-3 of our best players to do it than we will also not be title contenders” as well we have seen it over the past 7-8 years.

Sharpe looks like he can be an Australian representative at fullback, to act like the gap is the massive is just completely false.

If we want to win competitions we need to keep the best players keeping 3 and losing 1 is better than the visa versa that’s just how it works.
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It's all just a measure of how much talent we suddenly have. I don't think Kalyn is in the top two highest priority re-signings. Those would be Sharpe & Lucas, in my opinion. Kalyn is in the next bucket after that.

The thing I consistently criticised Melbourne Storm for was how they hung on to all of Grant, Munster, Hughes & Pappy so obsessively. They should have picked 3, economised on the other guy, and improved their forward pack. Or retained certain key forwards. The cause of every finals defeat they've had since their last premiership was the pack & back 5 not being good enough. I have to apply the same logic to us.

We'll get a little window where we can have all these players at once because a lot of our starters eg McEwen are very cheap atm, but that won't last. Hopefully we get in there and nab a premiership, we'll see. It's really hard winning a comp.

Then, after that, we'll have tough calls to make. Any extension for Ponga has to be one that doesn't result in losing the wrong guys to keep him.
 
CornChippy said:
I don't know if that is true anymore.

We are performing very well with Pongas 1.4 million of the salary cap on the sideline.

Would we be better off using that money on improving the rest of the roster?

You could go out and get 2.8 Sandon Smiths for that coin.
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Sarge said:
Could say the same about Brown . Just sayin!
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If we had one of them we would have been able to convert those attacking 20 sets more consistently I reckon. Played out of our skin for those two wins, would have absolutely put the cleaners through them with either Ponga or Brown playing.
 
KPGreatness said:
People like to use the “if we don’t have Ponga we won’t be title contenders” and while I believe that’s wrong, you could flip it and say “if we keep Ponga but lose 2-3 of our best players to do it than we will also not be title contenders” as well we have seen it over the past 7-8 years.

Sharpe looks like he can be an Australian representative at fullback, to act like the gap is the massive is just completely false.

If we want to win competitions we need to keep the best players keeping 3 and losing 1 is better than the visa versa that’s just how it works.
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We've won 4 games, only team we played so far in good form we lost too. Long way to go.

Finals is a different beast. We make the finals as is, I think we get daddied in Week 2 or Week 3 by a team that's been there before. We make the finals with a fit, fresh and determined Ponga and Brown, anything could happen.

Ponga is literally one of those cherry on top superstars that you need in those big moments in finals matches, not just some guy that is surplus to needs now because we've beaten up on some out of form sides 5 rounds into the season.
 
CornChippy said:
We are performing very well with Pongas 1.4 million of the salary cap on the sideline.
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Let's not get ahead of ourselves, we've been very good but that being said opposition has been well below there best, even beating tigers will be nice but hardly a yard stick, Panthers/Sharks/Storm will be the test.

Again - We've been great and can only play what is in front of us.
 
We’ve got a number of players coming off contract and with Frizz and Gags already leaving at the end of the year, it’s likely we’ll lose more. There’s no certainty Ponga stays either, so we really need to make the most of this squad over this year and next.
 
Yeah it's imperative we get to 16 wins, which almost guarantees top four, which gets you the chance to get finals seasoning against Penrith, and I'm guessing Brisbane & Cronulla will be the other teams in there on what I've seen so far. Wahs look like they should be there but seem to have gotten ahead of themselves lately.

You only learn which of your guys have what it takes & can stand up in those big games the hard way.

I suspect Fletcher Sharpe *will* be an excellent big game player, he gives that vibe.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
The thing I consistently criticised Melbourne Storm for was how they hung on to all of Grant, Munster, Hughes & Pappy so obsessively. They should have picked 3, economised on the other guy, and improved their forward pack.
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To be fair, if Walsh didn’t go super Saiyan, the Storm are reigning premiers. 😅
 
Oliver said:
We’ve got a number of players coming off contract and with Frizz and Gags already leaving at the end of the year, it’s likely we’ll lose more. There’s no certainty Ponga stays either, so we really need to make the most of this squad over this year and next.
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I can see Best being priced out for us, eventually I wouldn't mind seeing Sharpe move into their, in theory we could have both Fletchers as centres.
 
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