At the risk of being seen as "contrarian" Im going to play devils advocate here
1st off I want to make a couple of points clear -
1. I'm not a fan of AOB and i think he needs to go. In fact I think it needed to happen last year
2. Our club has sucked at bringing our juniors through. We have absolutely done a disservice to the young fellas of our catchment area.
Now every club has a list of players they had to let go, or chose to, that have thrived elsewhere. Thats RL and we seem to have more than most but we also have a much bigger catchment than most. Its frustrating and its hard to swallow but it is what it is, the reality of playing in a salary cap sport that's highly competitive in the junior space.
That being said, every player we lost would have come with a consequence if they didn't leave. If we had kept Kiraz, Meaney and To'a then we were unlikely to have gotten Marzhew or Young, both guys who were super important to our 2023 run. There's even a fair argument that we don't get Gagai back either or even lose Best to a better deal. Hell, theres a fair chance Sharpe doesnt get a run too. We keep Hosking and Sisagi then we risk losing Lucas and Frizell. Even KPP, who I acknowledge hasn't probably met his potential yet but is arguably one of the most physically gifted backrowers going around now. Barnett and King probably see us never sign Thompson and likely lose one of the Saifiti boys earlier.
Point is its easy right now, when we have 1000 injuries and look like shit to peak over the fence at players we've lost and be frustrated at them doing well in other systems. Some in packs that have world class players. Some in systems that take fringe first grader and make them look great by simplifying their role. I don't need to go back and look because I'm 100% certain that there were no posts here from people saying they wish we had those players in the squad back in the latter half of 2023 when we were humming. Inversely, I could find many posts about every player listed in this thread from members who bagged them and wanted them gone or were apathetic at best about them leaving.
20/20 hindsight is natural but it needs to be balanced with context. I too want our club to be better but its folly cherry picking the past to justify the present.
Again: Hosking
would have accepted the minimum, and happily accepted being a guy who captains NSW Cup and plays NRL when needed. Would not in any way have impacted Lucas' career, or anyone else's. He was desperate to come back and we basically turned our nose up at him. Now we're shitting ourselves the moment we get 2-3 injuries in the pack rather than saying "Zac won't let us down".
Sasagi, also, is not making big coin at the Raiders. To'a isn't making a lot at the Tigers. Meaney isn't on big money at the Storm. The kind of tough decisions you're talking about aren't "tough" when it's "do we keep this talented/reliable guy for basically nothing, or not?"
I'm very happy POS has not just kept Croker and Jones, but given them more than one year, this is literally the first recruitment guy who's actually shown some sense here. They can do a job for you in first grade and they're cheap. Keep them. They balance the cap. Previous admins would have been distracted by shiny toys and deprived one or the other of their top 30 spot to do it.
Croker's interview on re-signing was very telling, he talked about how much it meant to him & how much of a weight off it was to get multiple years, rather than reach the end of the season feeling uncertain about whether he had a job playing footy next year. When you think about it, it doesn't make sense what we used to do, basically neg these depth players & make them feel totally un-valued, handing out 1 year extensions at the 11th hour if we absolutely couldn't find anything more exciting. Yeah I guess we'll give you a year if we feel like it. Enjoy a bunch of anxiety and sleepless nights as you wait to find out!
Contrast with the Raiders, their abundant depth forwards. A lot of them you probably don't want as your week to week starters, but they can come in and perform well for a few weeks when needed - and they are needed, often, injuries are so common now in the NRL. Note that most of them get two or three year contracts. Security. A feeling of the club valuing them. And this is repaid with loyalty from player to club. People wonder why Trey Mooney is still there, well, this is probably why. They make him feel valued.
It's not that we didn't keep all of the guys we've lost, it's that too many have left, and we consistently have depth issues which have bitten us on the arse multiple times. Hosking stands out as an own goal not because he'd turn us into contenders, but how valuable he is
relative to the cost of keeping him, which in this case is literally nothing, no cost, no trade off. It's a symbolic own goal.
