Rumours and Stuff

[JokerEel]

i'd like to see smith back at our club in some role maybe HOF

To be the Head of Football or General Manager of Football you need to have be able to network.

That's why Gould is great at that roll or Panisi.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

*earned.

On the back of 97m per game and six tries when teams weren't expecting it? I hope you didn't pay too much, but looking at your squad it's pretty obvious you did.

But not this year.....Tigers signed him for the future which is just now starting to pay off and will pay off even more in the future.

He could be free to demand more money by the end of the year ffs!

Kid played prop for SoO at 22 years old.

A poor 12 minutes then was dropped.

Is a gun.

At almost 24 years of age he is finally close to being a gun. But this the first year he is making more metres per game than Paulo or RCG. I wouldn't have swapped him for either of them over the past three years.

you had him, now you dont but you keep telling yourself he gets paid more than Hass, AFB, JFH or RCG.

Keep telling yourself he's not. Why else would he be at the Tigers? Because he loves what Pascoe is building there?

You watch RCG stumble into the future and Ill watch Stef....deal?

The real mystery is why Paulo and RCG's contracts stopped us buying Lomax for this year but not for next year.

 

[gaffer]

do we actually have someone that scours the country looking for gun young uns to sign up any more

 

[the phantom menace]

The real mystery is why Paulo and RCG's contracts stopped us buying Lomax for this year but not for next year.

It's not a real mystery... with two "vacant" spots in the top 30, you'd imagine we're front loading them like f**k this year, so that we get more cap freedom for future years (like Lomax's arrival next year).

 

[JokerEel]

do we actually have someone that scours the country looking for gun young uns to sign up any more

Probably not.. no resources

 

[yy_cheng]

do we actually have someone that scours the country looking for gun young uns to sign up any more

i thought that stopped when we lost cleal

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Sad part going through that is there is generally minimum one or two implosions per year from us. No matter where we end up including making a GF.

2016 was ironically the only season we kept fighting and scrapping over everything and that was when we had nothing to play for after losing 12 points and basically kicked out of the comp. We just had an implosions off-field instead on it.

We didnt concede 40 once that season and the second half of the year was a spare parts side that had been decimated mid-season - Foran walked out, Norman got himself suspended for the last 9 rounds, Peats had to go, Junior Paulo got shipped off to Canberra, Jennings got injured and missed about 4-5 games.

Yet in all of BA's tenure it was our best defensive effort over a 24 game season was 2016. When we had nothing to play for.

We had a better average in 2020 but was a 20 game season.

We definitely have a team that needs to control the ball. This maximises our forwards' strength while minimising its weakness. As you say, we defended fairly well in 2020, just when clubs were getting used to the speed of the new rules. Since then we have fallen to shit as soon as we get a run of possession against us. Here's some insightful observations from 2021:

August:

Sure but it's a lot quicker changing your style to suit your players than rebuilding your roster to suit a particular style. Arthur had us playing this style because it was what worked best in 2018 and 2019 when we decided we needed to spend so much on powerful forwards (the Broncos were another club who did this). Prior to that we played a very different style, attacking the edges, which was nullified in 2018 with teams getting up quickly after slow play-the-balls. The best teams were all attacking through the middle and we needed to adapt. So we brought in Paulo and Ferguson (and then RCG) and shortly after the f**ken rules changed again. It reminds me of the 2002 ruck interpretation that killed our small, speedy pack.

September:

Simplistic analysis. Every team has strengths and you've illustrated ours. We attack well in the middle. We also kick well. But we have some glaring weaknesses, particularly our ability to defend speed and footwork through the middle. We also still have a relatively inexperienced spine, though we are certainly 'improving' there each year. Because they are playing more games.

I was actually convinced we had f**ked our recruitment strategy but then we performed well in the 2021 finals, followed by the 2022 grand final appearance. Now it seems we are f**ked after all. But 2021 and '22 were good seasons. Much better than missing the eight.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

I’m worried about Guthos knee. I think he is proper f**ked and every game he plays is only delaying the inevitable.

Gutherson has been in decline since 2021 but he has really dropped off a cliff this year.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

If we lack the people then someone isn't doing their job like I said....

Whose job is it to get rich fans? Who got Politis involved with the Roosters? These people get themselves involved, but they have to exist in the first place.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Your telling the story. What were the changes?

We overhauled the squad and went from 6 wins to 15 wins in the space of 12 months. We didn't sack the coach though, did we?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

do we actually have someone that scours the country looking for gun young uns to sign up any more

Given all the Queenslanders, foreigners and country kids in our pathways I'd say yes. This is where increased spending provides a huge advantage. We did it prior to Covid as well, which is how we got Kiwis (like Drown) and Queenslanders (like Marzhew) in our 2017 pathways. We were at it again last year, with a bunch of Queenslanders and country boys in the SG Ball team.

 

[JokerEel]

We overhauled the squad and went from 6 wins to 15 wins in the space of 12 months. We didn't sack the coach though, did we?

Maybe we should have might have won a competition or 2 by now

 

[JokerEel]

Whose job is it to get rich fans? Who got Politis involved with the Roosters? These people get themselves involved, but they have to exist in the first place.

Probably our board and CEO to network

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Maybe we should have might have won a competition or 2 by now

Yeah it led to heaps of premierships in the previous thirty years.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Probably our board and CEO to network

That’s how you get sponsors, not merkins willing to help out with dodgy gifts and job opportunities.

 

[Eelementary]

His position in reserve grade shows he is seen as a fullback. But if he wants to play NRL he will need to display his utility value. I think this is pretty normal for youngsters whose strength is running the ball. When I first heard of Talagi he was playing in the halves in Harold Matts.

I think it began to show in 2019 when we started making the finals consistently for the first time in over a decade.

Well how high should it be? Bellamy also signs a lot of nuffies who remain nuffies. The quality first graders are generally the ones you pay for, and we have plenty of those. The problem is they seem to be lower quality since 2022. That can be explained at least in part by their ages.

Arthur has also gotten surprise performances out of:

Drown
Nrown
Gower
Gutherson
Hopgood
Lane
Mahoney
Ma'u
Moses
Niukore
Opacic
Papali'i
Penisini

But I agree Smith was the master of it. He was a brilliant coach.

I would have thought that the next logical step for Brad would have been to start signing established, or near-established, First Grade players, to push us over the hump into genuine Premiership threat territory.

Some of our signings in recent years are puzzling - everybody knows Josh Hodgson was a quality player; however, everyone also knows he was coming off serious injuries, and was not the player he once was, and so when we signed him, it was really quite strange.

Arthur has done some great things for this club - he took a chance with Gutherson, who has established himself as the heart, and soul, of the team; he got Wicks playing great footy, as he did with Cartwright; he navigated our off-field dramas in his early years with aplomb.

But he's past his use-by date, and doesn't have anything left to offer - at least, as a head coach.

 

[JokerEel]

Yeah it led to heaps of premierships in the previous thirty years.

So we should never sack the coach using that logic

Clearly the senior players are not following his instructions so it's 1 of 2 options now get rid of Senior players or get rid of the coach.

 

[JokerEel]

That’s how you get sponsors, not merkins willing to help out with dodgy gifts and job opportunities.

Probably need to tell other clubs then who use that approach

 

[Poupou Escobar]

So we should never sack the coach using that logic

No we should sack him if it's warranted. But whether it is warranted or not isn't something we'll know beforehand as fans. If the coach's boss is happy with him we should expect that he knows plenty we don't.

Clearly the senior players are not following his instructions so it's 1 of 2 options now get rid of Senior players or get rid of the coach.

I reckon they are following his instructions. Some of them are just playing poorly compared to two years ago. That could be the coach's fault but more likely is that they are on the decline. We should've kept some of these veterans but not all of them, and I'm sure Arthur is responsible for that. But sacking him won't fix it. Abusing them in pressers won't fix it either, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

 

[Tiger5150]

<snipped a whole heap of scorned lover, Taylor Swift Lyrics>

At almost 24 years of age he is finally close to being a gun. But this the first year he is making more metres per game than Paulo or RCG. I wouldn't have swapped him for either of them over the past three years.

Yupppp.......thats the whole point. he is 23.
Barlow is 32, RCG is 31...how much improvement do they have? how much time do they have. Stef is surpassing them both now and has all of his best years ahead. He get first crack at him and first chance to keep him, because we got him.

Keep telling yourself he's not. Why else would he be at the Tigers? Because he loves what Pascoe is building there?

$275K pa got him.........Parra snoozed. Who is Pascoe?