I don’t pretend to follow the Raiders really closely, but I can’t really understand the decision not to fight a bit harder to keep Fogarty? Doesn’t seem like he wanted crazy money. He’s doing a great job controlling the game between their more experienced forward pack with younger outside backs. I understand it would likely come down to someone in the juniors they rate higher, they’re never a sure thing and it will probably be years before any young half can do for them what Fogarty’s doing now.
We kind of recruited Ethan Strange and Ethan Sanders as a double act, mates from the same junior rep NSW u19s teams with the suggestion that there was a clear path to FG for them here and if they did well they could build something special. There's a couple other juniors in that group but let's focus on the halves.
So we've been paying overs to get them here as teenagers- turns out Strange is already a good FGer so didn't turn out to be overs but for untried players likely to be developing in cup for year or two, it was overs.
Sanders is just about ready to go. He played a couple of FG games for the Eels when he was 19 or so and did just fine. In Cup he creates tries, can kick and tackles at 90%. He'd already have a better running and passing game than Fog. Fog is an excellent kicker now but the same coaches who took him from good kicker to great kicker are at the club working with Sanders...
Ideally we'd keep Fog for one more year to share duties but I think honestly the club didn't want to stand in his way getting a longer payday either. Then you just screw Fog over and annoy both your current half AND your future half.
Maybe also worth noting that in what the media describes as a "halves frenzy" and players like Dylan Brown getting a million + the market looked at Fog and decided $700k tops.
We just bought Brailey on decent $$, but also retain Starling who on current for will be paid ok too. I don't think we can really afford to have Fog on starting HB money `AND Sanders on overs for a backup/recruit money plus the three FG hookers all at the same time.
Fog will be 32 when he begins his 3 year contract with Manly... About 35 when he finishes. Slightly checkered injury history at Canberra already (misses half a season about every second season). Most fans are very high on Sanders and seems that is where the club has made it's bet too.
