Karma is perfectly welcome to reply.
It wasn't really a crack at Smith himself BG, it was more an inference that many of our first grade players are punching above their weight. Its a belief I have that sooner or later, players who are discards from other teams, show us the reason why they were discarded from other teams...
Simple as that.
I don't blame Smith himself for our recruitment ( or lack of ). Its already difficult for us to sign highly sought after players because lets face it, no one living the high life in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane wants to come and live in Newcastle - as sad as that may seem - its true.
We have the same issues in attracting high quality talent as the Raiders do, but even they attracted an international last year in Bronson Harrison.
My biggest worry of the lot is, I have serious doubts if the Newcastle Knights are trying to sign a halfback such as young Ben Hunt from the Broncos to be our long term half. Clearly Ben Hunt is ready for first grade, and will play first grade for a long period of time.
Most first grade teams have their halfback situations already sorted out. Obviously he isn't about to break into first grade at the expense of Peter Wallace, so there is a real opportunity for our club to go after him hard.
Is it being done? I've heard nothing about it. There's probably only a handful of clubs that will be able to offer Ben Hunt a first grade opportunity, and we're one of them.
If the Knights don't make a
serious play at him, they are deadset kidding themselves.
The Knights in the past have entered into negotiations with high level talent for a PR exercise - imo. To make it look to fans like they are having a go at signing high level talent, but really are never seriously in the hunt ( pardon the pun ) because they are nowhere near offering the kind of money other teams are.
And the reality is, we need to pay overs sometimes to convince someone to come and play and live in Newcastle. And I'm not talking paying overs to an aging forward like Ben Cross who will end up a massive waste of money.
I'm saying, go out and splash some $$$ at this bloody excellent young halfback talent who will be looking for a first grade gig next season, and who is obviously good enough to play there. None of the shades of grey talent that has clouded Walsh/Dureau.
Hunt could be anything and his talent is not a shade of grey. Its black and white.
You must have been busting to bring this out for weeks...I'm surprised that you didn't haul it out last week if only to make your hero's stats look even better!
What it tells me is that the team - or most importantly Mullen - is playing super footy to win games in spite of your hero's inept running and defence.
What's even worse about Dobjog, is he sits there and thinks he has come up with something brilliant, when in reality,
3 of the games Mullen has paired up with Rogers that have been losses were away games in Queensland ( Titans, Cowboys ) which are hard enough to win at the best of times, as well as the 2 point Tiger loss at Campbelltown that could have easily gone the other way.
The groin puller on the other hand, has played all but one game with Mullen
at home ( clearly Supercoach knows Dureau is absolute ratsh*t away from home ), and the one game that the Puller played with Mullen away was a win over those high flying premiership contending Cronulla Sharks.
Meanwhile the Mullen/Rogers combination was leading our team to the best victory of the season AWAY FROM HOME against the Dragons, and racking up points in a great attacking display against the Roosters. ( And would have/ should have had more points if a few players hands didn't let them down )
I've seem some crock stats in my time, but those ones just about take the cake :lol:
