Jeremy Smith to St. George Illawarra - HIT. Was showing signs of improvement for Melbourne by '08 after easily being their worst player for a number of seasons but they never got any benefit out of it. Smith for mine was on his day, the Dragons best forward who constantly challenged the oppositions line and punished in defence.
John Morris to West Tigers - Miss. Basically the same as Souths. Sheens thought he could replace Prince. :lol:
Anthony Tupou to Sharks - MISS. A Sticky favourite who's all flash and no substance. Marquee money well spent on a player who gives so little to the team.
Corey Hughes to Sharks - MISS. aqua's sig. still makes me laugh. What were they thinking getting rid of De Gois? The guy had been a revelation for your club and you replace him with this never was? Dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Trent Barrett to Sharks - MISS. Seymour is finally played at five eigth, where he belongs and low and behold he starts playing career best footy and helps the Sharks snare equal first on the ladder. Enter Barrett, Seymour shifts to halfback, fails, his drinking habit comes to light, let go and you're stuck with a guy who simply isn't good enough anymore. The sad thing is, he somehow enters the Origin arena proving once and for all, playing rep. footy doesn't necessarily mean you're playing good footy.
Just on the Sharks players there, I agree totally. Smith has remained a hit as he went to us from the Dragons- one of our best buys in years.
Morris has been a great buy for the Sharks, though hardly marquee. He is much better as a utility/hooker than a centre or half.
Getting rid of De Gois was very stupid, and poorly managed too, from all accounts. Glad he is back. If his knee holds out he may be a hit. Hughes himself played OK, and was hardly a marquee signing, but was really part of the bungling of the retention of De Gois, so counts as a miss in terms of how we weakened the team for no good reason.
Barrett was a miss, but it was desperate measures after the whole Bird mess, and its taken us years to recover and have working halves again. Hopefully Carney will stay out of trouble, in which case he will be a hit- otherwise he could mire us in trouble for years more.
Tupou has never been worth his $$$. Ben Ross before him was over paid given what he delivered (thats the risk of paying a lot for forwards), though it wasn't all his fault- hopefully his much reduced contract now can repay us a bit.
Vagana was a disastrous miss- went from one of the best centres to a truly poor and uninvolved player.
I guess Maitua was not a marquee but a hoped for bargain, but he was a big miss and added to our miserable 2009 season.
