Why does your team suck in 2017?

[Dr Crane]

Don't get defensive. Whoever the Premiers are will get this thread.

We're publishing an eff everything series on this site of exactly why our teams suck. I owned it and will quite happily wear it from wherever it comes.

LeagueUnlimited has no responsibility for this.

So. Why do you suck? Not just next year. Why do you hate and love being fans?

If you don't want to post, ritchie.ian@gmail.com. @coolian2 on Twitter.

If you don't want named I won't name you.

 

[OVP]

1. Diabolical decisions in the recruitment area by Peter O'Sullivan, especially the releasing of James Maloney for Jackson Hastings. Losing Michael Jennings and Sheck hurt bad too, we lost pretty much 95% of our points from the previous year. It was always going to take a long while to learn to score points again. But the loss of Maloney was by far the worst. He controlled everything, and without him it was clear we would struggle. Pearce can not lead a team around like Maloney can.
2. Mitchell Pearce's dog act and not being there for the first 8 rounds. Then gets injured and misses another few weeks.
3. The injuries and late return of JWH and Boyd Cordner.
4. Dreadful captaincy from Jake Friend. The continual finger-pointing at the younger players in press conferences must have done the world of good for the confidence of these young players(<-this is a sarcastic comment), who tried very hard at least. He should have been pointing the finger at the senior players not putting in. JWH or Cordner for captain next year please.
5. Aidan Guerra and other senior players not giving a shit until late in the season when it was too late.
6. Trent Robinson not dropping said players, again, until it was too late.
7. Kane Evans. I honestly thought this kid was something special after last year, and was a shoo in for origin. How wrong could one man be ? He has reached Dallas Hood and George Azzi levels of shitness.

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The only positives for mine were Latrell Mitchell, Conor Watson and Ryan Matterson. These are going to be great for us in the future and we need to hold on to all three big time. But can we trust our club to do that anymore ?

 

[OVP]

Btw i answered for 2016. I'm not sure I want to see what happens in 2017 if Luke Keary and Michael Gordon are our only signings of note.

 

[Captain Apollo]

Peter O'Sullivan release Maloney eh OVP? Talk about revising history. The Roosters offered Maloney a 2 year deal, the Sharks offered him a 3 year deal which Maloney took. That is not "releasing a player", releasing a player is not offering him a contract at all. How did I know this, it is what Maloney said after he signed with the Sharks publicly.

Granted though, yes the club could have upgraded its offer to 3 years. That said, Hastings was one in which our Chairman had a very big say in, hence that is why I think it unfair to pin it all on O'Sullivan.

 

[Valheru]

I think the whole Maloney situation is way overstated in terms of our on field success or lack thereof this season. It seems some people are convinced we would be top of the ladder still and the Sharks wouldn't be had we kept him. Regardless of whether Maloney stays, RTS still goes, Pearce still gets suspended and our horrific injury run still occurs. Granted, we probably win 3 of our first 8 as opposed to 1 with him there but I still think we miss the 8 if he stays.

 

[Captain Apollo]

My opinion -

Injuries: The ACL injury to Jared Warea-Hargreaves last season, and to Boyd Cordner in the off season putthe forwards behind the eight ball. It removed the two forwards who are the nominal leaders of the pack. Then add in the injuries suffered once the season started - Henderson, Copley, SKD, Tupou, Pearce (yes, he was out a few weeks injured), SST (yes he had an injury problem mid-season before the ACL injury last week), Lui - caused the team to be constantly chopping and changing. In fact the injuries in the forwards, which occurred when both Cordner and JWH were out, saw players brought in who were not up to first grade standard or who wee just not ready to make that step up yet. This constant chopping and changing prevented the side from building any chemistry or combinations.

Pearce's Suspension: This effected us as it meant we started the season with 2 relative rookies in the halves in Jayden Nikorima (who had played 0 NRL games) and Jackson Hastings (who had around 20 NRL games to his name). Combined with having a rookie fullback in Lartrell Mitchell, this meant we spent the first half of the season with an almost brand new spine. Coupled with the chopping and changing around them, it made it hard for these two players to settle. In fact it may have shown that Hastings was not as good as everyone first thought he was. Additionally I believe it lead to players like Friend and Guerra, as two of the few senior players available all year, to over play their hand in the game plan, which further caused disruption to the side. When their efforts did not come off it effected them negatively, Guerra in particular who for much of the mid-season hardly looked like an Origin calibre player.

Losing Roger Tuivasa-Scheck: This hurt more than Maloney as there was no real plan in place for this eventuality happening. Thus when it was announced he had taken the big money offer from the Warriors (which had we matched would have seen us lose quite a few players as he would have eaten up a lot of our salary cap to do e.g. Napa), the coaching staff were left in a scramble to find plan b. Latrell was not considered ready to be pitched straight into first gare at fullback, they wanted to blood him on the wing for a year first which is why they looked to Ferguson as the stop gap, but he didn't really fire so Latrell moved there after Round 1, but by Round 20 he was so beaten up physically, he was moved back to the wing so as to reduce the likelihood of injury, and Ferguson was back to fullback. What had been a position of real strength in 2015 was at best a "break even" in 2016.

 

[Parkway_Drive]

Why we sucked

(1) Our recruitment and retention sucked from 2015 to 2016

(2) Injuries starting with the injuries sustained when we had our finest win in 2015 against the Broncos late in the regular sesason. Continued throughout 2016, is our recovery and preparation right?

(3) The Pearce Saga and all the other rumoured partying going on at the Roosters in the 2015-16 offseason. I stress I know nothing and its only rumours but I have been hearing some consistent stories.

(4) The Fergo at Fullback in the off season experiment. It meant we only had one regular spine player from last year to start the season but then you can put this back to point 1 recruitment and retention.

(5) Friend being captain (Hindsight is such a overrated thing)

(6) The poor form on so called established senior players headed by Guerra who is absolutely woeful.

(7) With the poor recruitment and rentention coupled with injuries this forced Robbo to keep many underperforming players in the NRL team as Robbo couldnt afford to drop them as our depth was already stretched.

(8) The supporting coaches seemingly devoid of ideas

(9) POS links with Heyson enough said.

I am sure I have missed others things oh yes the whole Hastings/Friend feud that really set up our season.

 

[adamkungl]

We lowballed both RTS and Maloney, no doubt about it. That combined with Pearce shenanigans and injuries to Cordner and JWH had our season done before it started.
Could anyone say with a straight face these aren't (weren't) our 5 best and most important players?

I think 2017 looks a lot brighter. The dud Hastings has made way for the much sharper looking Watson and Matterson. Certain senior players have been put on notice and returned some better form in the back end of the year. And despite the reservations, Keary will be a good addition. Gordon will be lucky to play first grade, but at least there's someone to pressure Toopoo's position.

 

[Parkway_Drive]

We lowballed both RTS and Maloney, no doubt about it. That combined with Pearce shenanigans and injuries to Cordner and JWH had our season done before it started.
Could anyone say with a straight face these aren't (weren't) our 5 best and most important players?

I think 2017 looks a lot brighter. The dud Hastings has made way for the much sharper looking Watson and Matterson. Certain senior players have been put on notice and returned some better form in the back end of the year. And despite the reservations, Keary will be a good addition. Gordon will be lucky to play first grade, but at least there's someone to pressure Toopoo's position.

I think Gordon will see some first grade initially with SST probably being out for the first 6-12 weeks due to his recent ACL injury.

 

[Captain Apollo]

We lowballed both RTS and Maloney, no doubt about it. That combined with Pearce shenanigans and injuries to Cordner and JWH had our season done before it started.
Could anyone say with a straight face these aren't (weren't) our 5 best and most important players?

We low balled RTS?! He was offered over $800,000 per season by the Warriors. Had the club offered thgat we could not have afforded to make any offer to Maloney, nor a number of opther players. I wish peoiple would gop back and read through what went on instead of dredging up this shit that we "low balled" RTS. I mean would you like to have lost Maloney, not re-signed Napa? Not re-signed Corder? I mention those 3 would not have been able to been given an offer as there would have been no room under our cap. We had a number of players coming off their first contract since hitting first grade who due to performance, would have been wanting more money. To match that offer fro RTS you would have lost a number of players.

Also lowballed Maloney? A 2 year contract is a low ball huh?! Considering key players like JWH"s last contract was a 2 year contract, that is a laughable claim.

Sorry for being harsh Adam, but it just annoys the crap out of me when I hear revisionist stuff like this as I've been hearing it in certain quarters all year.

 

[adamkungl]

I don't buy it. We made them both offers so that proves we could afford at least that. How did we end up with neither, AND lose Jennings?
The only revisionist history going on is the mental gymnastics above to justify the clubs poor recruitment decisions in the off-season.
We should have kept at least one of those 3 with room to move.

 

[Parkway_Drive]

We could have extended Shecks contract even before 2015 rolled around for about 400-500k a year. But about that time the powers that be were still not convinced he was going to be out long term fullback and we're worried that we would be paying him fullback money to play on the wing.

Then in 2015 came the perfect storm. From out of nowhere Tomkin's picked up his bat and wanted to go home (apparently the missus was homesick but I think it's because he was struggling with NRL standard of footy). The warriors had now 750k plus to spend with that event happening and his manager wanting him to go back to New Zealand we were caught out.

We cocked up, we could have extended him for a lot less before all this happened.

 

[Captain Apollo]

I don't buy it. We made them both offers so that proves we could afford at least that. How did we end up with neither, AND lose Jennings?
The only revisionist history going on is the mental gymnastics above to justify the clubs poor recruitment decisions in the off-season.
We should have kept at least one of those 3 with room to move.

Yes both were made offers. My point was had we matched what the Warriors offered, we'd have kept RTS but lost other players as we could not be able to afford to re-sign them as they were coming off contract and expecting a pay increase also. You accuse me of mental gymnastics. I'm explaining what happened in relation to Maloney and RTS which is what was being discussed, you didn't even mention Jennings.

Parkway by comparison's point is more valid than yours as a critique as you completely refuse to look at what the situation was at the time. Hence next time you try to teach me to wipe my nose, you worry about your own first!

 

[adamkungl]

We offered both RTS and Maloney contracts.
RTS was reported as 400k, and im guessing Maleney was in a similar range, lets say 400 as well (id guess more).
With the expectation that Jennings was still on the books, and knowing we'd have to extend other contracts.
It was mentioned numerous times through the year that we were well under the cap.

We had money to spend, and made the wrong call. The club's offers prove that we could have kept one of them. You can't offer up 800k+ if it doesn't fit.

 

[Captain Apollo]

We offered both RTS and Maloney contracts.
RTS was reported as 400k, and im guessing Maleney was in a similar range, lets say 400 as well (id guess more).
With the expectation that Jennings was still on the books, and knowing we'd have to extend other contracts.
It was mentioned numerous times through the year that we were well under the cap.

We had money to spend, and made the wrong call. The club's offers prove that we could have kept one of them. You can't offer up 800k+ if it doesn't fit.

You are working on assumptions that did not happen. The club offered RTS and Maloney deals. RTS was out of the blocks early announcing his signing with the Warriors. To have matched it meant using up our club's cap space on him. Don't forget, we knew back in 2014 that the following first graders would come off contract at the end of 2015 -

Jared Waerea-Hargreaves
James Maloney
Aiden Guerra
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck
Daniel Tupou
Shaun Kenny-Dowall
Mitchell Aubusson
Remi Casty
Frank-Paul Nuu’asala
Dylan Napa.

Casty left, FPN was released to the Raiders. However that still left a lot to re-sign. Who out of those would you have sacrificed to keep RTS? Remember it was reported Maloney did not leave because the Sharks offered more money, they offered him a 3 year deal as opposed to our 2 year deal. That decision by Maloney was only about 3 months or so after RTS signed with the Warriors. Of course that excludes any lower grade players.

Of the above, considering they had all bar 1 now become premiership winners, do you not think all of them would have been hoping for an upgrade on their previous contract? I dare say just about all of them. Hence to have matched RTS's offer from the Warriors would have gobbled up that cap space before a number of the above even got a look in.

Finally, clubs do carry cap space from 1 year to the next as they can be aware they may have players coming off contract the next year that may need upgrading. Have you seen the list of players off contract for us at the end of2017? It is a bit scary talent wise if we lose them. Here it is for you -

Pakisonasi Afu
Kane Evans
Blake Ferguson
Michael Gordon
Aidan Guerra
Jackson Hastings
Shaun Kenny-Dowall
Joseph Manu
Ryan Matterson
Dylan Napa
Mitchell Pearce
Chris Smith
Sio Siua Taukeiaho
Daniel Tupou
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves
Connor Watson.

 

[adamkungl]

You are working on assumptions that did not happen. The club offered RTS and Maloney deals. RTS was out of the blocks early announcing his signing with the Warriors. To have matched it meant using up our club's cap space on him. Don't forget, we knew back in 2014 that the following first graders would come off contract at the end of 2015 -

What assumptions? We offered both RTS and Maloney deals. Fact. And the numbers were either reported, or can be guessed within a ballpark figure.
The simple fact that we offered them deals means we had a plan A in mind regarding who we were keeping and not. When plan A fell apart (RTS signing with Warriors), there was no plan B.
We didn't fight harder to keep Maloney, we didn't sign anyone else with the 400k that had just freed up (and dont give me the spiel about upgrading contracts, at this point the club has already decided what to do or else how could they offer RTS anything in the first place).

Then Maloney calls it quits. So thats 800k-1mil that was planned to be in our roster this year. How did we respond? By replacing them? No. We put all our eggs in the Hastings basket, and offloaded Jennings (another 500-600k) for good measure. We played under the cap with a side that desperately needed backline experience.

Fwiw, if it meant keeping one of Maloney or RTS, I'd have happily pushed out Tupou to top them up a bit more. And based on this years form Guerra would have been no big loss (but that can't have been predicted).

 

[Captain Apollo]

Go back and read what you put in your post which is what I was refuting, I'll remind you - "We lowballed both RTS and Maloney, no doubt about it." I was merely arguing we did not low ball them.

You are now introducing new material which has nothing to do with "low balling" contract offers which is what you said.

Should the club have had a plan b? That sir, is a different issue which I may not disagree with you on.