The Halfback Conundrum

Which potential halfback, available from November 1, should the club make the #1 priority?

  • Ben Hunt

    Votes: 7 13.2%

  • Braydon Trindall

    Votes: 7 13.2%

  • Jonah Pezet

    Votes: 27 50.9%

  • Sam Walker

    Votes: 3 5.7%

  • Daniel Atkinson

    Votes: 2 3.8%

  • Lachlan Ilias

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • None of the above - Stick by Jack Cogger and continue to nurture kids currently in the system

    Votes: 5 9.4%

  • Other (comment with their name)

    Votes: 1 1.9%

  • Ronald Volkman

    Votes: 1 1.9%

  • Toby Sexton

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    53
Pezet did his ACL 4 and a half months ago.
It's a 9 to 12 month injury, so he's not doing a pre-season at all - except in the rehab gym.
At best we might have him ready by mid season, if we can even get him for 2025 - which we might, because Storm won't want to pay him to do rehab if he is leaving anyway.

So basically, Cogs is our starting halfback in 2025. Like it or not.
He has shown enough in the last month to say he can do a workmanlike job as a 7, which is basically all we got from Hastings for triple the money.

So to the 6.
Our only real hope for a dynamic, match winning half from the current squad would be either Pryce or Sharpe forming a great partnership with Cogs over the pre-season.

Buying a plug-and-play option for 5/8 is always a chance, but POS (Pater-of-Sean) will keep his cards close to his chest with all signings I think. We'll be the last to know.
 
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Even if Jonah misses the pre-season, I think getting him into the system and working within the structures we want to use in NSW Cup would be good. And yeah Cogger seems to have gotten his head around how we wanna play and you can see the blokes around him trust him, so he can hold down the fort in the meantime.

I retract anything positive I’ve previously said about the Hastings signing. I thought we were paying him something in the order of $5-550K, which I thought decent value for a guy who’s good at steering a team around the park and getting the ball where it needs to go - which was what he was doing last year. Leaves cap space for chasing a good foil in the halves.

$800K for Hastings was just lunacy though, even if it’s a back-ended deal. Lunacy for good Hastings in 2023 and a disaster for the guy we saw this year. The injury dramas were bad luck, but it did honestly seem like a big part of the late season form boost was that the players were happy not having to play with him anymore…
 
Problem with Cogger for mine is he got dropped after that Panthers game for some concentration and effort areas that were lacking. Putting aside some doubts anyone may have about Cogger being a long-term first grader that was really alarming to me that he has that in his game.
 
Yeah I’ve went and re-watched all his games for Melbourne so far. I’m all in. I don’t know how good he’ll be but if he’s not at least a very good 200-250 game+ first grade #7 I will be very shocked. His skill level is just in a different stratosphere to anyone we’ve got in the squad besides Kalyn (or maybe Pryce, but he’s far more in command of his talent). Has the ball on a string with that boot and a very intelligent ball player.

When he’s deputised for Munster or Hughes, he wasn’t just being asked to make his tackles, put in some kicks and stay out of the way - he slotted in as just as much of a key part of the attack and was very active, getting on the ball quite a bit, alternating between creating space for others and being the key man in attacking movements.

I know people say “anyone can look good for Melbourne”, but actually, no, not anybody. Guys like Brodie Croft, Riley Jacks and others have struggled to do their jobs there, and the fill-in spine players who’ve gone well there in recent years have flourished elsewhere (Hynes, Drinkwater; Widdop and Blake Green if you go a bit back before that). In some ways it’s easier to play for a team like that and in some ways it’s more demanding because you need to keep up with absolute top drawer spine players who process the game and play at a very fast pace.

Letting him go was our equivalent of Brisbane losing Reece Walsh. Do whatever it takes to get him back.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Yeah I’ve went and re-watched all his games for Melbourne so far. I’m all in. I don’t know how good he’ll be but his skill level is just in a different stratosphere to anyone we’ve got in the squad besides Kalyn. Has the ball on a string with that boot and a very intelligent ball player.

When he’s deputised for Munster or Hughes, he wasn’t just being asked to make his tackles, put in some kicks and stay out of the way - he slotted in as just as much of a key part of the attack and was very active, getting on the ball quite a bit.

I know people say “anyone can look good for Melbourne”, but actually, no, not anybody. Guys like Brodie Croft, Riley Jacks and others have struggled to do their jobs there, and the fill-in spine players who’ve gone well there in recent years have flourished elsewhere (Hynes, Drinkwater; Widdop and Blake Green if you go a bit back before that). In some ways it’s easier to play for a team like that and in some ways it’s more demanding because you need to keep up with absolute top drawer spine players.
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I've said it a lot, but worth saying again - our 2019 Mathews side was the best junior side I've seen for us, and Pezet ran that side like a conductor running an orchestra. At the end of the year they had a NSW under 16s V Pasifica under 16s, and Pezet got 6 try assists by my count. Two years ago he played for NSW under 18s I think it was, and it was one of the great performances in junior SOO.
In attack, he is a young Mitch Moses.
In defence, sadly he's a young Mitch Moses.
 
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Yeah he’s a bit Sam Walker like defensively.

But. He’s not soft. He gets his body in front. You can work with that. Moses has become a very good defender for a half from a very bad starting point.

He played five-eighth (and set up the only try) in Melbourne’s 8-0 win over Penrith to open the season. So a team with him in it can defend well.
 
So Jonah Pezet played a year young in SG Ball in 2020.
He played alongside Tom Cant, Brock Greacen, Riley Jones, Taj Blackman, Jacob Davis, Taj Ridley and a heap of guys who are now playing at other clubs like Oryn Keeley, Tim Johhanson, Fletcher Myers, Mitch Henderson, Chris Vea'ila, Lachlan Crouch etcetcetc.
Fun fact, Pezet lost a few games in Knights colours when he played Mathews at age 14, but from age 15 till he left the club, the Knights never lost when he played in either Mathews or Ball. The few games we lost were when he was injured or unavailable due to rep commitments.
 
Dunno if the ACL injury is a blessing in disguise and has kept some interest off the table. Emergence of Whishart for Melbourne as well could ease there hold of him.

I think long term, you want a half who is going to develop with the playing squad and considering he played juniors with a few of them, could be a nice carrot to go with. kid who will develop with likes of Pryce, Linnane, Loza, McEwen, Hopwood, ESL, Votano, Aoake. Juggling act by recruitment is what we do in regards to experience. Losing Dsaf, Brails eventually, Gags and Frizell getting closer to calling it in next 2-3yrs. we'll need to balance the squad with experience. Matty Arthur will be a great addition to spine along with Crossy's experience

Having a future spine of
KP
Pryce/Gamble/Crossy/Linnane
Pezet/Cogger/Crossy/Gamble
Arthur/Crossy/Davis

Its quite young, couple players not yet proven in Pezet and Arthur, Pryce let alone Linnane I'm throwing in more on potential in 2-3yrs as I don't think we resign Pryce due to his inflated contract (reportedly)

I think he'll end up being one of our best signings and with the excitement I personally have of our junior ranks, having a young but level headed half with his capabilities with a bunch of locals wanting success here. It's an awesome outlook to build upon.
 
frankLauda said:
Read the article. Near the end. Why would Ben Hunt not want to play with his good buddy! Obviously all hear say but not beyond the realm of possibility.

www.foxsports.com.au

‘His patience will run out’: Big Ponga fear as Knights told to land big-name half or lose superstar

‘His patience will run out’: Big Ponga fear as Knights told to land big-name half or lose superstar
www.foxsports.com.au www.foxsports.com.au
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Seems like they just copy and paste this whenever Ponga is a few years of coming off contract
 
It's no surprise Cogger started to look better later in the year when the team started performing better. A half relies on the team to get him in to great field position with tackles to use, but also in that field position with some momentum as well through dominant sets and quick play the balls.

The team is a machine that needs to all work together to provide the try scoring chances halves take advantage of.

So it's no good throwing a half in there then labeling them a failure because they can't single handedly win the game for us.

Getting rid of Dsaf is a step in the right direction for a future half.

Also, we need a well coached, well drilled, and motivated team that knows what they are doing to generate scoring chances which is something I feel we didn't have earlier in the year and only later did we start to get that part of our game sorted, which coincided with our change in form.

In short, whoever we put in the halves, the rest of the team needs to be pulling their weight for that half to be a success.

Pezet is still the target for mine.

Hunt would be a 1 or 2 year deal only, if we were buying Hunt thinking we can win the comp now then sure thing, but that isn't likely is it?

Hunt wants to return to QLD from what I've read, and if he came here we would get 1 good year from him before he is homesick again and wanting a release.

With hunt, we would be 2 years down the track, likely with no premiership, and searching for another halfback.

Also, teams tend to get better the longer the same squad plays together, so for stability and kicking off that built up experience together, again, Pezet.
 
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Another quality half may become available, remember what happened with Mitchell Pearce, and yes if we can’t sign Pezet, Cogger can be our half for next year.

I thought Hastings would work out well for us and he did for a year but this he was very disappointing. I also was wrong about him being the halfback we needed.
 
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