This post hits the mark for me.
Would we honestly have been worse off just going with Gagai, Hodgson and even Mann at fullback this year? Instead of committing 3-years to a reserve grade player at the ripe age of 29 - and also giving up one of our under 20s rep players..
It just screams of madness and desperation. I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes I feel AOB is trying to sabotage because he knows he has one foot out the door. Probably extreme thinking but that's how this feels to me.
to answer your question, 100% we would be a worse side with Gagai or Mann at fullback. We have played both there in the past with varies degrees of incompetence. They were horrible to be frank.
As for Hodgson... he is unproven and has barely played a game in the past 3 years mainly due to injuries, so you can't go into the season relying on him. He may be better and more talented than Miller, but he has to stay on the field to prove that. We CAN NOT rely on Gagai or Mann as fullback options.
It does have desperation to the decision, but its a necessary evil in this case and Miller certainly improves our roster in my opinion.
We are in a position where we basically have to build our roster from the ground up and its going to take a couple of years to achieve that, if done properly. We will loose players we want to keep as fans and we will loose some of our promising juniors as well. It is why they would have bought in Parr.
Look at Penrith now and how long it took them to get it right. Don't forget when they started they got rid of players like Michael Jennings, Luke Lewis and a couple of others.
The problem with our position is that we are not a destination players want to go to or even want to stay at once we get them. We need to become a competitive side first where other players will start looking at us and see we are going places and will regularly be in the play offs. That will also help to keep our best juniors.
There are cultural problems in the club which i believe the club has started addressing by recruiting Hastings, Elliott and Hetherington as well as the changes to the coaching staff.
I know it requires us to trust the club to make the right decisions, which they haven't exactly proven they are capable of, but its the position we are currently in. Parr has a huge job in front of him
