Rumoured and Confirmed Signings Part2

[billypilgrimnz]

DWZ is yet to reach his potential. But he's already better than Hiku.

There's no spots left in our backline unless we let Mansour or Whare leave. Or when / if Moylan moves to the halves. .

Don't agree with the first sentence at all. Hiku at fullback in the final series a couple of years back was significantly better than anything DWZ has shown so far.

Second sentence: Whare sounds like he's going to leave, and not because we signed Hiku.....

 

[maple_69]

I would have been fine if he didn't come but I'm happy with the signing. Yes we might lose Whare and Mansour but we'll still have at least a few of Rennings, Gennings, Smith, Blake, Heffernan and Naden waiting.

First and foremost we know Hiku is quality now. I want to win a premiership this year, not indulge in the dream of having a side of 100% Panthers juniors coming good and winning in 3-4 years.

I agree woth the Moylan thing though. I have no idea why we wouldn't get started on that. Opens a wing, makes DWZ happy, potentially drastically improves our halves, and leaves us with a solid plan to either replace Moylan with Martin in 2016 if it doesn't work out or prepare Martin to take over from Soward in 2017, while Blake and Rennings fight out as injury cover and know that if they are good enough, we likely have Mansour/Whare leaving shortly.

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised with what you get from Hiku next year. He's a natural centre.

Not a winger, definitely not a fullback, I think he'll excel at centre. Good pick up and that makes a very strong centre pairing.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I don't think we can win a premiership with Soward and Wallace as our starting halves.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised with what you get from Hiku next year. He's a natural centre.

Not a winger, definitely not a fullback, I think he'll excel at centre. Good pick up and that makes a very strong centre pairing.

He's definitely, definitely not a stand-off!

 

[abpanther]

DWZ is already better than Hiku?

Mmyeah OK, once again many here are overrating our juniors

 

[chrisD]

Hiku just isn't really that good. Good finisher, solid, versatile, but he's hard to get excited about. If we lose Whare then we've come off second best in this tilt.

 

[mxlegend99]

DWZ is already better than Hiku?

Mmyeah OK, once again many here are overrating our juniors

Or you're over rating Hiku. DWZ earned a spot in the NZ team ahead of Hiku. Hell he even got picked ahead of Manu Vatuvei. Unfortunately he had horrible timing for getting injured.

Hiku will do well for us. But if we don't lose anyone as a result of signing him it would be a miracle. Manly had him for less than we paid to sign him and were more than happy to get rid of him to sign Dylan Walker. While we could have thrown the exact same money at Walker and had no realistic competition for his signature.

We overpaid for the most average centre that was on the market despite not needing to sign a centre. If we are going to sign a player for a position we are well covered in, we should atleast go all out on the best available in that position.

 

[Fibroman]

Hiku = straight swap for Lewis Brown in a way. I'd rather we still had Brown, but change is inevitable, so lets give young Hiku a chance?

 

[Randy81]

For what its worth, i am happy with the hiku signing (i may be the only one it seems....).
Yes manly are trying to get walker but the big play on their mind is that tom trbjovich is going to be a big star.

Considering we just went through a year of epic injury fails and lack of versatility across the backline (waqa to wing fail, yeo too slow for centre etc) i think hiku is the perfect fit.
His time in fg has seen him impress at fullback with snake out, score plenty of miraculous one handed diving tries on the wing and played centre at international level. All seems positive to me.

Imo yes he is not an explosive player (like roberts) but he has a decent skill set and seems to be a very smart footballer. Competition for spots is the key to success. He could easily play fb if moylan were to move to 6.

 

[Randy81]

Hiku just isn't really that good. Good finisher, solid, versatile, but he's hard to get excited about. If we lose Whare then we've come off second best in this tilt.

Just out of interest where has the whare rumour come from? Isnt he off contract end of 2017? (Not that contracts mean anything)

 

[GongPanther]

Go the Punk Pinthers

I mit gew chew Crustchuch eind wuch the Pinthers.I might git to cee a game with the Awl Bliks is will uff they are playing.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I'm happy with the pick up. Considering we just a season where we had Brown and Yeo regularly being shoved into the centres, I think it is churlish to complain about picking up a solid international centre with some positional flexibility. Rennings and Blake a still a while away, but there will be injuries and they will get a shot throughout the season, and then in 2017, Wallace will be gone (hallelujah!), Whare and Mansour will probably be gone, and the spots will be available.

As long as (a) he is not another walking injury and (b) we never play him at 6, as he was total shit there for the Kiwis, I think he will be a success.

 

[maple_69]

I see him as similar to Whare. Very skilled and effective player without being flashy. Not too expensive (I'm not sure where you're getting an idea of a large contract mx? I haven't heard it anywhere) and does the little things well. Whare would be a hard signing to equal but he seems much less boom/bust potential than Lafai, Roberts, Idris even. Walker is a better centre right now but we have a strong requirement on character to build a strong team culture which i respect and support.

You only need to look at Manly fans reaction to losing him. They are very disappointed and many are on the fence about replacing him with Walker who is a premiership winning, Australian centre.

 

[mxlegend99]

I see him as similar to Whare. Very skilled and effective player without being flashy. Not too expensive (I'm not sure where you're getting an idea of a large contract mx? I haven't heard it anywhere) and does the little things well. Whare would be a hard signing to equal but he seems much less boom/bust potential than Lafai, Roberts, Idris even. Walker is a better centre right now but we have a strong requirement on character to build a strong team culture which i respect and support.

You only need to look at Manly fans reaction to losing him. They are very disappointed and many are on the fence about replacing him with Walker who is a premiership winning, Australian centre.

We are reported to have offered him a $1.3m deal over 3 years, with our use of car allowance thrown on top. We outbid teams who actually needed him to improve their squads.

I don't think we needed a centre at all. But if we must sign one why help Manly get a better player by taking hiku off their hands? We could have gone straight for Walker and got him for similar money.

A 3 year $1.3m deal is going to mean we lose someone. 2 years from now we will be watching Robert Jennings or Waka Blake run around in first grade carving up and it will come back primarily to this decision that took away a first grade spot and basically says we don't have faith in either of you. That or we lose Whare or Mansour or someone in our current top team and we could have easily kept them for the same money.

Hiku is a solid and reliable player. But he's not a game breaker and he's not going to make a big difference to our top 17 aside from removing hope for a young guy to force his way into the NRL.

The fact Sea Eagles chose to break his under valued contract early to go all out for Walker shows that they don't see him as the game breaker either, and are happy to lose him to sign one.

I don't think he will let us down. I don't think he will be a bad player for us at all. I think short term he improves our top 17 by a little bit. But i think come 2017 it will be a decision we regret and that the short term gains are pretty minor. If we must free up a spot by letting someone go, i would hope it's Mansour and not Whare. But i would rather keep them both than sign Hiku.

 

[BxTom]

We are reported to have offered him a $1.3m deal over 3 years, with our use of car allowance thrown on top. We outbid teams who actually needed him to improve their squads.

I don't think we needed a centre at all. But if we must sign one why help Manly get a better player by taking hiku off their hands? We could have gone straight for Walker and got him for similar money.

A 3 year $1.3m deal is going to mean we lose someone. 2 years from now we will be watching Robert Jennings or Waka Blake run around in first grade carving up and it will come back primarily to this decision that took away a first grade spot and basically says we don't have faith in either of you. That or we lose Whare or Mansour or someone in our current top team and we could have easily kept them for the same money.

Hiku is a solid and reliable player. But he's not a game breaker and he's not going to make a big difference to our top 17 aside from removing hope for a young guy to force his way into the NRL.

The fact Sea Eagles chose to break his under valued contract early to go all out for Walker shows that they don't see him as the game breaker either, and are happy to lose him to sign one.

I don't think he will let us down. I don't think he will be a bad player for us at all. I think short term he improves our top 17 by a little bit. But i think come 2017 it will be a decision we regret and that the short term gains are pretty minor. If we must free up a spot by letting someone go, i would hope it's Mansour and not Whare. But i would rather keep them both than sign Hiku.

Manly didn't see Whare as a priority either - they let him go to buy other players.

http://www.nospam9/nrl/whare-hopes-stick-manly-6042/#F0RHoursFY1zqUVx.97

Tom.

 

[Randy81]

mx,
Gould has confirmed the 1.3 million as reported by josh massoud is overstated.

Journalists often make up figures saying "dt understand the contract is around $xxx". Once its in print they then just say "reported $xxxx contract" and the next journo will guess even higher and so on. The initial guess becomes lost in print and fans just take it as fact.

Given the recruits and retention we have made in recent years, i think its pretty obvious that we don't pay "overs" anymore.

 

[mxlegend99]

Manly didn't see Whare as a priority either - they let him go to buy other players.

http://www.nospam9/nrl/whare-hopes-stick-manly-6042/#F0RHoursFY1zqUVx.97

Tom.

They had a full 1-7 with no spots available for him at full strength. He was a fix it player covering wing, fullback and centre. He was also off contract and worth more to us then to Sea Eagles.

Hiku was also covering the same positions but was part of their full strength side and under contract for less than his current market value. If he were a game breaker they would have kept him for the length of his contract as they re-signed him a while ago before his value would have gone up.

We also had plenty of spots with no clear favorite for the position back then. So Whare made sense to buy as we had a lot of spts up for grabs.

Until yesterday we had one spot up for grabs and some great talent fighting for it. We were in an ideal position to develop a young player.

 

[Black Magik]

All these juniors that will now want to leave because of Hiku's signing were in the same position 2 months ago when we still had Idris!

If Gould, Griffin and those in the know think we need experience that isn't there who am I to argue.

Welcome to Penrith Peta. Go hard son!

 

[Copperhead]

They had a full 1-7 with no spots available for him at full strength. He was a fix it player covering wing, fullback and centre. He was also off contract and worth more to us then to Sea Eagles.

Hiku was also covering the same positions but was part of their full strength side and under contract for less than his current market value. If he were a game breaker they would have kept him for the length of his contract as they re-signed him a while ago before his value would have gone up.

We also had plenty of spots with no clear favorite for the position back then. So Whare made sense to buy as we had a lot of spts up for grabs.

Until yesterday we had one spot up for grabs and some great talent fighting for it. We were in an ideal position to develop a young player.

You keep saying this like Manly are infallible with their retention and recruitment. They're not.

You're underestimating Hiku and over rating Jennings and Blake, who were quite frankly shit last year, and a long way from being ready for first grade. Add in the fact Jennings can't play 2 games in a row without getting injured and I think Hiku's signing is a good one.

As Black Magik said, he replaces Idris, and you weren't lamenting the lost opportunities for the juniors when he was here.