NRLW Recruitment & Retention Thread


Article that says Waterman is leaving.
Kukutai is expected to return after playing super rugby
Willison is expected to return after playing rugby 7s
Parker is a signing priority
Herdegan is leaving
We are close to announcing a forward signing who is an international and a premiership winner

Article pretty much goes through everyone and says we have 2 top spots and development spots to fill. The article says the two top spots will go to an outside back and a half and that the two development spots will also be an outside back and a half.

Jefferies says that we have promoted someone from the Harvey Norman side, so i'd guess that would be a forward.
 
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Tazmin Rapana
Tallisha Harden
Steph Hancock (saw conflicting reports on whether or not she’s retiring)
Amber Hall
Mya Hill-Moana
Tiana Davison
Vanessa Foliaki

Not a very inspiring list
 
Moana signed with Warriors I think.

My pick is Rapana
Harden (gosh damn I hope not)
Or Hall. Hall was pretty formidable this year, seems to have more energy than likes of Predabon, But hopefully Predabon works hard on agility in off season.

Davison I'd imagine would be going to Warriors.

We need more than one forward, though article said they are looking at back up half and backline player to add to final two spots.
 
I was impressed with Lehman in the HN GF. She played nearly every game after being picked up from the local comp and I think is 23.
It won't surprise me if she is the one promoted from HN.
 
Rapana and Hall are back rowers. Not what we need.

Tiana would stroll back into the side at the minute, wouldn’t say no.
 
Yeah Davison would be the pick of that bunch for mine. When she signed a 1-year deal I figured she was aiming to go back to the Warriors which still might be the case but nothing announced as of yet.

Predebon, Karpani, Romaniuk & Tinao aren't striking fear into anyone based on what they did this season. Said a few days ago I'd be tempted to throw Kukutai in as a starter over all of them based on her apparent improvement and performance in the grand final. She's big, mobile, plays big minutes and can pass the ball a bit. Either way going to need a new strategy through the middle next year without CJ and Butler.

Maynard announced she's retiring which is a bit of a surprise, still a really handy player so figured she'd go around for another year or two at a Sydney club. Was a great move bringing her in when Manzelmann left.
 
For my money Maynard was never much more than competent. Never replicated the point of difference Emma Manzelmann gave. She did her role of allowing Higgins to have a spell. She was there to plug a hole in the roster until girls coming through the pathways were ready to take that role on and she did that. It wouldn’t shock me if her retirement has a bit to do with there not being a lot of interest in signing her.

If Tiana is the player we’re bringing back, she’s probably good for about 80-90 running metres per game but yeah not someone who’ll replace the go forward we’re losing. She’s very mobile and defends well though in my opinion though, so we’d probably be best advised to start her, Hannah and Karpani in the middle and have them front load energy into line speed, and get most of the yardage from the edge forwards and backs. Fane Finau reminds me of Anessa Biddle so she should help with that once she comes into the team.

I just can’t believe there isn’t money available to sign even one really good play 1 prop to replace CJ. Very frustrating.
 
The article randomly mentions Joeli Morris was the player of the year in HVN cup right after saying someone has been promoted from HVN Cup, so I assume the author thinks Joeli is the most likely.
She said at the presentation that she wanted to concentrate on hooker and lock this season but had to play 5/8 due to Herdegan being injured.
I looked at her NRLW history and she played 2 games at hooker, 4 games off the bench and 1 at wing over 3 years at the roosters. She played 5 games at hooker or bench in 2023.
 
Few rumours flying around on Socials the Davison is coming back for 2025+.

Not exactly who we need. but step in right direction.

Figured for sure she'd be going back to NZ. Begs the question why she left in the first place.
 
Yeah it's good news. Still leaves us looking for proper pack leader (hopefully Kukutai becomes that, have tracked down some clips of her as she didn't leave a big impression on me in her NRLW games and she reminds me somewhat of Shannon Mato athletically), but she went quite well as a starting middle for the Roosters this year. If she was in our team this year, once CJ went down she would have instantly been our most athletic experienced middle and probably would have started every game at prop.
 
Huge questions have to be asked about how we use Jesse Southwell.
I think it was Ruan Sims who said in commentary that she is heavily targeted every week in NRLW, but we just use her in the same attacking corridor every game, so other teams can put their best defenders on her and cut down her options.
We saw in the PMs XIII game that she was the best player on the field when she has some room to move.

We really should let her loose to rove all over the field looking for weak defenders and attacking opportunities. At very least she should be swapping side with Georgia Roche at times during the game

She outplayed Kirra Dibb and the other halves used by so much it wasn't funny. Use her or lose her I reckon.
 

Another well researched and informative article by Renee Valentine, who seems to be doing regular articles on the women's teams.

This one is about Olivia Higgins.
Says she had to ask for 4 weeks unpaid leave to play for Australia.
Says the players are getting 3k a week to play in the Pacific cup.
Says the minimum wage for NRLW players is 34K for a 20 week season, but is set to rise to 50k by 2027.

The article is basically about players still needing another job to make a good income over the year.
 
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