The Halfback Conundrum 2: Electric Halfbackloo

Who should be our first choice halfback in 2026?

  • Dylan Brown

    Votes: 8 19.0%

  • Sandon Smith

    Votes: 28 66.7%

  • Fletcher Sharpe

    Votes: 6 14.3%

  • Tyson Gamble

    Votes: 3 7.1%
  • Total voters
    42
And yeah the thing people miss about Melbourne is that Munster, Grant and Hughes are all "organising" players who happen to also be very dynamic. That's why other clubs can't just throw their most dynamic guys in there and get the same results. Everyone would do it if they could.

I think if there's a big problem AOB had with the spine is that he'd always worked with Cam, Coop and Billy, then at the version of the Chooks with Cooper Cronk, Luke Keary, James Tedesco.

Then he arrives at Newy and he's got his Origin players at 7 and 1, and his background tells him that great players just work it out. Remember when he picked Mann in 2020 and tells him that all he needs from him is to nail the basics? That's a measure of his belief in Mitchell Pearce - his great player who'll just work it out and do the rest. Takes too long to realise that Pearce, while a good on-ball dominant halfback, needed a specific type of 6 beside him to thrive in that role. Then since Pearce left his answer to question marks over the spine has so frequently been "Kalyn will figure it out". That's how he lands on the notion this year that Kalyn can basically play halfback from 1 and then imagine how dynamic we'll be with two running halves playing off that?

Don't know if this is uncharitable but that's my read on it. On one level, he believed in his players, and that's good. Given what Kalyn has done for him, it's not that weird that he'd have a lot of faith in him. And he obviously instantly regarded Fletcher Sharpe as a great player, and he is, and I guess that's how he landed on how big of a role he gave to Fletch straight away. But I don't know maybe he was too close to it?

"Great player" doesn't necessarily mean "they'll just figure it out, no matter what you do with them". Some have specific strengths and weaknesses and are a little more situation-dependent.
 
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I think an Organising half is a little bit of a myth. If our forwards were as good as Canberra this year, I think Cogger would look as good as Fogarty does. Fogarty definitely has a better kicking game but ball in hand it’s a pretty marginal difference. Melbourne can play without a genuine organiser because their system is so good and defence so dominant the team always plays on the front foot. Smith and Brown will be able to “run” the team if the rest of the team is functioning. If we’re horrendous again, then we’ll look unorganised and whoever is wearing the 7 will get pinned as not the organiser.
 
I think "organising" is a catch all, shortcut term. It can mean a lot of things. Different things from team to team.

Souths were a very structured team which won at 64% during Reyno's career. They've become a lot ****ter since. The Broncos were in a really bad way before Reyno got there and won at 59% since he arrived. They play a much looser, improvisatory style. He's thrived in both, "organising" what they do in different ways.

The with/without splits over Jamal Fogarty's time at Canberra are like 64% and 40%, he's a perfect case study because he's gotten injured a fair bit there. He is absolutely vital to the success they've had and they'll miss him heaps.

I reckon it's a misnomer to identify Melbourne as a "system" team these days, they play more with broad principles and a lot of improvisation, and lean very hard on just how talented their key players are. "Organising" there doesn't mean what it means for say Jackson Hastings. It's actually quite startling how few of their tries are from really precise set plays or anything like that when you watch a full season highlight reel, unless you count kicking to Xavier Coates as a set play. The difference between how good they are with all four starting spine players fit vs two of them out is massive. Jonah Pezet papered over a lot of cracks with Hughes out on the weekend.
 
Fogarty has just also been fit a lot this season when they’ve won a ton of games. You’re right about the Storm though, I shouldn’t have said system. They’re just a well coached team that don’t need an organiser, they just need really good players in key positions. There is certainly value in having high IQ players wearing the 7 jersey and hopefully one of Brown/Smith/Sharpe become that player for the Knights into the future.
 
The with/without split for Fogarty was already like 60/40 before this season, they always missed him when he was out. I agree he's not amazing, he is middle of the pack for starting 7's right now. He's just a type of player a lot of teams need.
 
He’ll be back in his late 20’s on more money when some struggling club decides that he’s magically passed the right age/experience level to come in and turn things around for them. Very future Wests Tigers 7 areas.
 
Newygirl said:
I don’t understand why Sexton is going to the Super League. Given the shortage of actual halfbacks, surely there’d have to be NRL clubs that could use him
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I heard somewhere Perth Bears could be interested. Don’t know how locked in he is with SL. Maybe do a year there and come back to NRL. We would look good with Sexton as our half!
 
mozza said:
More talented. Dunno if he’s a better halfback though.
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Yeah fair. Also guess it depends what you're looking for.

Sexton definitely more your dinner suit wearing kicking/shouting halfback who'd instantly become the least dangerous 7 in the game in attack if they outlawed grubber kicks. Has also gone an entire season without a line break (hilariously, the try he scored on the weekend counts as a kick and regather try, not a line break and try, for the SuperCoach heads out there). But he could probably be one of those 7's who does 90%+ of the kicking and does a good job of it.

Sandon I think has a lot more to the rest of his game though, very nippy, good ball player (I reckon he's way better at steering a team around in yardage, always looks way more of a threat to create something at the line), way more skill & deception in his hands etc. Just not someone we're going to be able to rely on for all the kicking. He's okay but nothing special in general play (I think the signs are good as an attacking kicker though). He, Dylan and Kalyn will have to split those duties between them.

On the flip side, kicking can be worked on. But you can't take a slow halfback and make them a fast one.

Guess the way I'd put it is, I wouldn't be happy if we gave Sexton more than a 2 year deal, but very happy we've locked Sandon down for 4. Ceiling is higher with Sandon.
 
Newygirl said:
I don’t understand why Sexton is going to the Super League. Given the shortage of actual halfbacks, surely there’d have to be NRL clubs that could use him
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Every chance multiple clubs gave Sexton an offer but he opted to take a years holiday earning good money living in the South of France - back in time for the Bears to further inflate the halves market.

Sexton got shafted at both the Titans and Bulldogs - time out of the RL spotlight will probably do him the world of good.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Yeah fair. Also guess it depends what you're looking for.

Sexton definitely more your dinner suit wearing kicking/shouting halfback who'd instantly become the least dangerous 7 in the game in attack if they outlawed grubber kicks. Has also gone an entire season without a line break (hilariously, the try he scored on the weekend counts as a kick and regather try, not a line break and try, for the SuperCoach heads out there). But he could probably be one of those 7's who does 90%+ of the kicking and does a good job of it.

Sandon I think has a lot more to the rest of his game though, very nippy, good ball player (I reckon he's way better at steering a team around in yardage, always looks way more of a threat to create something at the line), way more skill & deception in his hands etc. Just not someone we're going to be able to rely on for all the kicking. He's okay but nothing special in general play (I think the signs are good as an attacking kicker though). He, Dylan and Kalyn will have to split those duties between them.

On the flip side, kicking can be worked on. But you can't take a slow halfback and make them a fast one.

Guess the way I'd put it is, I wouldn't be happy if we gave Sexton more than a 2 year deal, but very happy we've locked Sandon down for 4. Ceiling is higher with Sandon.
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You have a lot of wraps on the kid HVG, getting me fired up! I've gotta say I was impressed watching his last game. More impressed than some limited watching of DB. Going to be interesting to see how they both go, but hopefully we can put an end to the halves merry-go-round.
 
Haha well, let’s not get it twisted: Dylbags has always had, and still has, the potential to be the best 6 in the game. I honestly still think he’s somewhere between the 3rd and 5th best right now even with all the **** that’s gone on this year and he just gets very vocal criticism because of how much money he makes & the assumption from his debut that he would go on to become like a top 5-10 player in the entire sport. And also because when he does do something good it’s some of the most impressive **** you’ve seen on a footy field all year. So then you’re like: Why doesn’t he do this all the time?

Sandon, I think it’s conceivable he could be a guy who’s regarded as a top 10 halfback in the game with a couple more years experience.

So definitely different tiers of talent. But yeah on the halves merry-go-round ****, I think a mistake we’ve made a lot is trying to change guys into a different kind of player, rather than try to maximise what they’re best at. Could we turn Dylan Brown into like the 8th best halfback in the game? Yeah, maybe. Is that better than having the #1 five-eighth? What’s more worth a million dollar plus deal?

I think the thing you’d most want is the #1 halfback, but the Nathan Cleary/Mitchell Moses store is all sold out. So let’s see if we can have both the #1 fullback and #1 five-eighth!
 
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It was clear as day that Holbrook would use him as a halfback and wouldn’t care what idea POS had about him being a hooker.

The people that said he will have a big say was wrong shocker, like I said no coach worth their salt would agree to let the RECRUITMENT MANAGER have the final say over the HEAD COACHES selections
 
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