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The Rumours Thread

possm

Coach
Messages
17,013
The Ilias signing was never going to work because as most could clearly see, he is a reserve grade level player. It has backfired because of the message it sends about the coach.
Now we face the prospect of trying to entice a great half knowing you could be punted at any point for the coach's son.

It's not going to be easy to persuade someone to come, especially in the context of another failed and regressive season.
I think both Shane and Kyle know the 14 jumper is Kyle's immediate future at the Dragons.
 

possm

Coach
Messages
17,013
Sandon Smith has agreed to sign for the Knights for 4 years and Kobe Hetherington is joining Manly. Looks like Saints missed out on a couple of handy guys to strengthen their stocks, one to a team that came last and had 60+ points put on them yesterday.
I'd say the Board has a lot to do with who we are recruiting. It is time they gave salary cap responsibility to the new CEO and just handed him the policy and a budget to comply with.
 

Corrimal Dragon

Juniors
Messages
111
In 2026:
1 New fullback
2 Williams
3 Suli/Buchanan
4 Holmes
5 Lawson
6 Atkinson
7 New Halfback/Reed
8 Klemmer/Leilua
9 Liddle
10 T Couchman
11 Halangahu
12 Su'A
13 Stewart

14 K Flanagan
15 Kerr
16 LPT
17 Nick T at

Where's Gutherson. Are we in talks to offload him to England. Wouldn't surprise
 

TheRev

Coach
Messages
13,418
The Ilias signing was never going to work because as most could clearly see, he is a reserve grade level player.
It is really hard to pick the right 7.. Cleary aside.. 100% of them fail 'atleast' once.. the trick is picking the ones who were let go too soon... and just need a few more years experience.. but even them you never know... Sexton, Fogarty, Clifford, Dearden all blokes who needed a 2nd chance.. not all reached the same level, but all of them have been workable in 1st grade at different times.. that might be all we need..

I think I might have bought into the Ilias hype, tbf he used to be faster pre-injury.. I reckon thats what goes wrong.. I watch him and if he was faster.. it would work.. but its not.. so it gets swallowed up.... to think Douehi might have come instead.. im sure we could have worked with him.. far from perfect but add 10-15m per set and imo we are competitive fullstop.
 

Slippery Morris

First Grade
Messages
8,212
I would have persisted with Illias in 2026. He was coming off a long serious injury and giving him 7 or 8 games is way too harsh. You don't know what happens off field I suppose. But when you see articles saying players are not happy and it is because of KFlanno, it is clearly coming from him or his manager which is sour grapes. You don't want a player in your team that leaks stuff to the press to damage the club. Saints had 2 years of that from their previous capt.
 

redVinme

Bench
Messages
3,387
Not good if true, he has a lot of knowledge about our juniors

He has failed massively at talent identification and retention.

He is supposed to be head of pathways yet Saints best juniors are playing at other clubs!

Bostock, Robson and Garrick are just a few names that would make this current team way better and should have been easy decisions to retain.

I couldnt disagree more.
 
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