Witzer Pre-Season Challenge - Round 3 - Roosters V Knights - Industree Group Stadium, Gosford - 3:15pm Sunday, 23rd February

AOB played him at 5/8th for 2 years. Pryce is a fullback. Imo that has destroyed the players progression

Pretty sure Pryce played more halves in the ESL than fullback. He’s just not a very good player. He’s a great runner and stepper which is enough to make highlight reels in the UK where the quality of the defence is poor but you need more to succeed in the NRL, especially in an important position like the halves or FB. I think his best chance of making it in the NRL if he keeps trying is at centre or wing now tbh - but whether he’d want to go down that road or cut his losses and go back to the UK to play in a spine position is up to him.

I feel a bit sorry for the kid because it’s clear he would have had the opportunity to develop into a much better player if he’d played his juniors in Aus.
 
Got to watch game properly last night.

Pretty much what everyone has said I agree with in reviews.
With a full squad, Sharpe looked great with doing all that is asked of him, early ball to Best and KP and back up and capitalize on opportunities.

KP breaking the line again from kick return and actually had back up this week (even though his brain farted and he didn't know what to do.
Feel like he could do that once every game this year, he'll just find someone tired enough to burst through on.

Wanted to give massive shout outs too Jones, Croker and Hetherington and Cant who like they did at end of last season, actually increase our go forward when they come on. This is what I meant our top 30 are looking like genuine NRL players now. The depth is much better than people think.

Also big shouts to Fletcher Hunt, Logan Aoake, McCarthy, McEwen, Tyrone and Hopwood. Bar a shiftful intercept we kept them scoreless, especially considering they had plenty of ball in second half to attack the line.

Positionally interesting calls this week. Votano straight to wing (possibly because he played FB in CUP before game) and Hunt to FB who was superb there. Votano I would have over Pryce if there is a need to cover KP at FB.

A very nice positive team performance, the attacking structure from last week continued and got better. Mentality in ball control and ruck control was very evident as well.

Bring on Tigers who will be tough.
 
Side note, Obliterating Toia and Dom's edge was delightful. No hate towards Dom, if he wants to come back he can, but considering certain experts were saying Toia looks to be a breakout first grader and will hit ground running, Sharpe and Best completely destroyed him.
 
Toia absolutely looked like he'd be a star in junior Origin a few years ago, but I think he's since done his ACL twice. Tough to come back from that and make your way in first grade at the same time and there's no tougher examination for a centre than marking up with Bradman. The Roosters just need to be patient with him. So I'd like to congratulate Toia for the contract he'll be signing with a different club at the end of the year when Uncle Nick pushes him out the door.
 
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Watched a replay last night signs were good but the Roosters were unbelievably poor. Having someone with Sharpes running threat at 6 could transform this team. I thought every single one of our big names played well. Cannot wait for Friday week now, think it’ll be a big match considering how well the Tigs played without their best players on Friday.
 
"Crawls" in his story today calls AOB saying "That's what trials are for" when asked about the round 1 halves pairing "bizarre". Mind you AOB was asked this before yesterday's trial. What's he supposed to do, name the round 1 team? IDK if there's a worse RL journalist than Crawley.

 
Yeah, I don't know. Personally, I think working out your halves combo should probably have happened over pre-season. I'm a bit frustrated with it & I think it's weird to go into trial #2 not knowing who your round 1 halves are.

On the flip side, we're not in the building, we don't know the players. It's been crystal clear that Sharpe has been locked in at 6 for weeks now and we basically have a direct quote from him, that Adam said to him something along the lines of "that jersey is yours if you want to work for it".

With Gamble & Cogger it's, I'm not sure, it's a competition for that spot, that's what trials are for.

That, from the outside looking in, is an odd way to approach it when in one case it's a fullback changing positions and on the other it's two experienced halves.

Could all be a man management thing. Clearly Fletcher is flying with the confidence which has been expressed in him. Gamble at least is obviously very competitive and maybe it's not the smartest move to tell him he's got no chance of winning a jersey. And Cogger, well, he's been around the block a bit now & is probably just going to carry on carrying on whether he's in NRL or NSW Cup come round 1.
 
If you believe Toohey's News from last week they did know Gamble was going to be the round 1 half barring a terrible performance or injury. We'll see how set in stone that plan was now.
 
AOB doesn't owe Crawley or fox any explanation. If he does or doesn't know who the halves will be, maybe he hasn't communicated that the the candidates yet as he wants to foster competition or deflated a player right before they play.

Plenty of reasons to play the cards close to the chest.

Crawls can crawl back under his rock.
 
"Crawls" in his story today calls AOB saying "That's what trials are for" when asked about the round 1 halves pairing "bizarre". Mind you AOB was asked this before yesterday's trial. What's he supposed to do, name the round 1 team? IDK if there's a worse RL journalist than Crawley.

Should have heard Brandy's response in the pre game show. Almost sounded offended over it.
 
"Crawls" in his story today calls AOB saying "That's what trials are for" when asked about the round 1 halves pairing "bizarre". Mind you AOB was asked this before yesterday's trial. What's he supposed to do, name the round 1 team? IDK if there's a worse RL journalist than Crawley.

Don’t worry about Creepy. He’s still up in arms that we don’t worship Bennett for totally ruining the club.
 
Seems to me that the halves were pretty much decided and it was going to be Gamble/Sharpe but Gamble's back issue is a potential spanner in the works. Even if not correct no coach over the last 3 weeks has been committal about players in our out of their round 1 teams.

They've already pre-written the "Knights in Disarray" stories if we go down in round 1. Yesterday I reckon most of them did a word search for "Knights" and "O'Brien" and replaced them with "Roosters" and "Robinson".
 
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