Toohey's News

Read as Tooheys opinion. Not a write up from a source.

Being honest though and I'm a big Jacko Hastings fan, I doubt we win a comp with him as a 7, we'd have to have the Safs dominating and Frizell and Gags a years younger but same desire they have now. I mean we may get that in a couple years with thr Thompson Twins dominating, but our two best players now are 33 yr old centre and 34 yr backrower.

Not saying it can't be done, but the teams all round laziness to not, carry on the hard work of the 10 game winning streak and automatically just want to sit back and watch KP was alarming this yr. Sad for KP but we needed the team to be without him for a period of time to learn to play as a footy team again.

I have biug hopes for likes of Herdegen and Linnane and potentially Loza and Fletcher Hunt. Some real talent there and I think Jacko is good enough for now to bring the team through and Pyrce.

Whole team and club need to be on with doing hard yards though. To do that 10 game streak or play like that again, the whole team needs to be intelligent and buying in on what coaching staff a training.
I made my last post on Tooheys news being a knob, but this one I’ll be genuine and still look a knob.
I agree with you, our best are getting on, we’ve got great but broken players, talented but not ready players and we’ve got cap thieves.
Most probably won’t agree, but for me, I’d love a decent coach topped off with Brownie as the recruitment manager. Not afraid to move the rubbish on and can somehow entice good players to an ordinary club. He had thick skin the lad, I’ll always be grateful for his clean up here
 
I made my last post on Tooheys news being a knob, but this one I’ll be genuine and still look a knob.
I agree with you, our best are getting on, we’ve got great but broken players, talented but not ready players and we’ve got cap thieves.
Most probably won’t agree, but for me, I’d love a decent coach topped off with Brownie as the recruitment manager. Not afraid to move the rubbish on and can somehow entice good players to an ordinary club. He had thick skin the lad, I’ll always be grateful for his clean up here
Yes, Browny had to clean up the mess after Old Wayne liked the vision at the Broncos, then Souths, then the Dolphins. and now possibly at Souths again, or Parra.
Do you not see the pattern?
None of these were struggling clubs.
Old Wayne is no good with struggling clubs unless their “vision” is to pay him over $1 million and allow him to bring in “good” players from other clubs.
Talk about the Emperors New Clothes!
 
I made my last post on Tooheys news being a knob, but this one I’ll be genuine and still look a knob.
I agree with you, our best are getting on, we’ve got great but broken players, talented but not ready players and we’ve got cap thieves.
Most probably won’t agree, but for me, I’d love a decent coach topped off with Brownie as the recruitment manager. Not afraid to move the rubbish on and can somehow entice good players to an ordinary club. He had thick skin the lad, I’ll always be grateful for his clean up here
I'm probably the only person that will agree but that's a thing to me that stood out of Brownie. The guy could recruit some handy players.

Didn't rate him as a coach but always thought he could make a decent recruitment manager.
 
I'm probably the only person that will agree but that's a thing to me that stood out of Brownie. The guy could recruit some handy players.

Didn't rate him as a coach but always thought he could make a decent recruitment manager.
Unlike Bennett sides generally don’t fall off a cliff when he leaves, he leaves them in a good state.

Actually they pretty much all massively improve, which I’m not sure is a great recommendation for his coaching skills. 😂
 
I am sure Jackson Hastings will be given a chance to return to full fitness and prove he’s the man for that #7 jersey for years to come. I would imagine that is one of the questions AOB & Parr will be asking themselves & decisions they’ll be making as Nov 1 draws closer - is the man we can trust to steer the side to a premiership already at the club?

If at any stage Troy Pezet is spotted at the centre of excellence and/or finds himself filling a vacancy in pathways/coaching which mysteriously opens up sometime in the back half of this year, we might have our answer about what the club thinks they should do a bit before Nov 1.
 
9/5/2024

Says we should get our skates on to sign KPP beyond 2025 if we don't want another Dom situation.
Says KPP, Leo and Lucas are the future for our forward pack.

Says the club stuck to their guns with Gagai negotiations and got a deal that has clauses about how many games he plays next year etc. Says it came down to the Gagai family not wanting to move.

Says Brodie Jones has impressed the people who matter most at the club - doesn't say who that is.

Toohey has had a lot of questions re Mat Croker. He asked O'Brien about Crokes and O'Brien says he likes the way Crokes trains and plays and Crokes will get further opportunities.

Says Fletcher Sharpe couldn't have impressed more in his half game of Flegg and will play a full game this week and return to reserve grade if he gets through that.

Says young Cessnock halfback Jack Thompson was dropped from our Mathews side after 2 games this year and was snapped up by the Warriors. He took the Warriors side to their historic grandfinal win in Mathews in their debut season and Thompson was invited to travel with the Warriors firstgrade side (on their team bus) and sit on their bench last week.
I have to say I thought Jack Thompson was very impressive in Andrew Johns cup last year.
 
From age group footy to opens you have 3 teams each year to eventually move to opens. the maths says you will lose most of them. Carving up in matts isnt a measure of a future nrl player either.
Agreed. Well done to Jack. He was also our 7 for Laurie Daley cup and they got whipped most weeks. So who knows, really. He got to watch 1st hand the Knights NRL team 7 out smart the Warriors 7 with his own eyes, so thanks warriors. 😜

We have some great prospects in Ryder Crosswell, Chase Butler and Lachy Hails. Let alone Linnane, Loza, and Hunt in SG. We’ve held onto some good talent last few years. Some will slip through and that will be written up more than who we’ve held onto.

Going to be interesting how Knights juggle resigning KPP and Leo to competitive contracts, let alone Pryce. I think it’ll take losing Elliot, Hetherington and that’ll free up some good cash. Shipping Dsaf may come into calculation, but that’ll have to work that we aren’t paying his time away, which I doubt would work easily.
Lucas is less a worry resigning as he’s home grown and very close with the lads and I doubt would want to leave.
 
If Adam Elliott makes around $500K and Jack Hetherington around $350-400K, by not re-signing them and replacing them with minimum salary players, you’re looking at an extra $600K or so to per season to play with.

Leo makes $250K, Kai I think around $4-500K, it’ll probably take over $500K each and potentially closer to $600K or a little more to keep both.

So, you probably need about $550-600K per season to top up those deals to keep them.

The money is there, unless both hold out and test their value in November and it turns out it’s higher than that.

Often the big advantage in these negotiations is that you can immediately top up the salary for the final year of their current deal (in this case 2025), which clubs looking to nab them for 2026 would be unable to do. From what I’ve heard though we don’t have massive wiggle room to do that, unless they’ve been fibbing a bit about the cap situation.

If Dane has taken a bit of a haircut, maybe there would be scope for at least some kind of raise in 2025 for Leo especially? I guess we’ll see. It does boggle the mind that the club is crippled by the deals on the books now considering the roster at - crazy random example - the Roosters, where they somehow have about 12 players on $800K or more…
 
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16/5
Josh Schuster has been offered to the club at around 350k a season - less then half his previous 800k.
Knights are weighing up the pros and cons.
 
16/5
Josh Schuster has been offered to the club at around 350k a season - less then half his previous 800k.
Knights are weighing up the pros and cons.
That’s got to be a hard pass. No 2nd row spots available and he’s shown that 6 is a stretch for him. Would make a great rehabilitation project for Bellamy or Bennett.
 
We’d be taking the punt on him as a half. That’s the obvious position of need.

I think I would prefer to take the punt on Adam Doueihi.

I don’t want to speak ill of Josh because as far as I’m aware part of his struggle has been that he hasn’t really recovered emotionally from his best mate dying in his arms at training, but just from a purely “what’s best for the Knights” perspective, we have a better idea of what level of play/commitment we’d get out of Adam if he can have some injury luck, than what we’d get out of Josh injury or not.
 
Sd
We’d be taking the punt on him as a half. That’s the obvious position of need.

I think I would prefer to take the punt on Adam Doueihi.

I don’t want to speak ill of Josh because as far as I’m aware part of his struggle has been that he hasn’t really recovered emotionally from his best mate dying in his arms at training, but just from a purely “what’s best for the Knights” perspective, we have a better idea of what level of play/commitment we’d get out of Adam if he can have some injury luck, than what we’d get out of Josh injury or not.
Adam Doueihi is massively overrated. I’m yet to see him do anything that says his even a first grader.

Josh has more upside and a point to prove. That’s a why I’d give him an incentive year long deal see how he goes. With the right coach he could be very damaging.
 
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