NRL General Recruitment and Retention

[Defence wins games]

Happy to let him go if we have better options lined up. Just think we should do what gives us the strongest team in 2027.

He appears a strong player currently - otherwise we’d have seen De Courcey or Hunt lock down the position.

I also wouldn’t mind a look at a few of the other candidates (in the right circumstances) in FG before driving Gagai to Brisbane though. Obviously they have 9 months to develop - and a lot can happen with them (improving) and Gags (slowing down).

We heard McCarthy trained the house down this pre season. And had big wraps. We heard De Courcey would be a sure thing - but now both of these guys look to be jettisoned.

At worst, he’d be fighting and pushing these young guys to earn a starting spot and mentoring them. I guess we still have Schiller as a back up….

I believe Schiller has been told to explore his options and if he can get a start elsewhere, the Knights would let him go a year earlier.

 

[krustykraz]

I maintain De Coursey is a sure thing but he suffers from Lomax syndrome, he is a much better winger but looks to only want to play centre.

The whole “earn it” idea only ever works if you have a coach that is willing to take risks and dump players that aren’t even playing bad they actually might be playing good but they will still drop them because they believe the ones below them can do it better and are in better form. Outside of that “earn it” is a myth.

For example of “earn it” I’ll use hypotheticals and Winter and Gags.

Winter: (cup)
Games 10
Tries: 8
Metres avg: 154

Gagai: (nrl)
Games: 10
Tries: 4
Metres avg: 135

Now that shows at a extremely basic level that Winter is in better form and has “earned it” do you drop Gagai despite Gagai still performing well?

Could have done it more in depth but couldn’t be screwed at the moment and I take you get the point

I don't think stats from Cup and NRL are comparable like that.
It's a lot harder to make 100m in the NRL than NSW Cup.

 

[jamesgould]

I believe Schiller has been told to explore his options and if he can get a start elsewhere, the Knights would let him go a year earlier.

I think it’s said that in Toohey’s News actually … we want him to go, but he wants to stay. Maybe if he did leave we’d have been able to keep Gagai.