CEO payments / K Hunt

[oikee]

I think CEO payments should be used for players that are of strategic importance to the whole game. The NRL needs to start thinking like a Competition with it's eyes on the world not just our backyard.

The NRL needs to be ready to recruit players not for increasing our own viewership in Australia solely but the profile of the NRL in strategic markets where there is a Rugby presence in particular and bring financial benefit. This could also be done by partnering with Australian centred RL connected companies that have a presence in these nations (killing two birds with one stone) to help fund these raids.

These nations would be like France, Italy, Argentina, Japan, South Africa and New Zealand.

Recruiting the highest profile players from these nations from Union and INTENTIONALLY using marketing initiatives to bring a focus on the NRL as the toughest and biggest 'Rugby' competition in the world.

Imagine recruiting strategically the highest profile African background Springbok and key Africaans background player (this would particularly work well with expansion into Perth as well) BUT the point would be to flood SA TV and the web with Vox Pops of these players declaring 'Watch me step up into the toughest Rugby Competition in the world!"

Increasingly and creating foreign TV markets and strengthening the International presence of RL is crucial to our long time growth.

The NRL also needs to make it 'normal' for ALL Blacks in NZ to consider a stint in the NRL as the only way to prove they are truly world class 'rugby' athletes.

I would also be looking at American fringe athletes who dont make the grade in baskerball and NFL.
The AFL are already doing this now, and have a heap of rejects from America about to hit the afl market here in Australia.
I think the NRL and AmericanNRL should start looking at this huge market.

 

[Danish]

You guys have seriously short memories. Hunt was one of the premium fullbacks in the game before he left. He also regularly played for qld and Australia, plus he was good enough to make his debut at 17.

Hunt is about as good a player as Darius Boyd is today. Only difference is for some reason QLD insisted on keeping Billy Slater - otherwise known as one of the greatest fullbacks of all time - out of the fullback position to give Hunt rep jerseys

 

[DURRRHURRR]

Lote Tuqiri was pretty good when he left league....

 

[Parra]

I Actually think if Israel came back he would become the best back in the game anywhere.

And the Eels backline would be unstoppable.

 

[wiputi82]

Hunt is about as good a player as Darius Boyd is today. Only difference is for some reason QLD insisted on keeping Billy Slater - otherwise known as one of the greatest fullbacks of all time - out of the fullback position to give Hunt rep jerseys

Because Slater has a tendency to get thrown around like a rag doll during Origin.

 

[Canard]

You guys have seriously short memories. Hunt was one of the premium fullbacks in the game before he left. He also regularly played for qld and Australia, plus he was good enough to make his debut at 17.

Tim Smith was the next Andrew Johns then also.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

Hunt can't beat Brawny Spirit over 1000m

 

[Johns Magic]

Personally I'd prefer hunt back then folau. Hunt was awesome, I loved watching him. Folau was the over rated one. Yeah he carves up union, so what. Joseph Tomane was a reserve grade winger for the titans the year they got the wooden spoon and walked into the wallabies side. Daniel toupou is a carbon copy of folau, he isn't missed.

Bahaha

 

[Bring it home Knights]

Tim Smith was the next Andrew Johns then also.

How many good years did Smith have? How many good years did Hunt have? Apples and oranges.

 

[RUG13Y]

Give him peanuts.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

Yeah.... WELL before he left, he'd lost his origin spot (shifted to the bench with little to no impact) and was on the steep decline at club level too. People remember him as the kamikaze fullback he was when he first debuted but those days had already passed him by by the time he left. We don't need him back.

He was leading the league for try assists in his final year.

 

[malleekid]

Personally I'd prefer hunt back then folau. Hunt was awesome, I loved watching him. Folau was the over rated one. Yeah he carves up union, so what. Joseph Tomane was a reserve grade winger for the titans the year they got the wooden spoon and walked into the wallabies side. Daniel toupou is a carbon copy of folau, he isn't missed.

This every day of the week. Hunt kept Slater out of the Aus and Qld jersey for a good 3 years. Had the ability to play anywhere in the backline, at the time and possibly still could have been the better player.

 

[kbw]

He was never a kamakazi fullback, for some reason Ch9 kept perpetuating the myth. cutie was one of the softest fullbacks I have ever seen. He is the only fullback I have ever seen run away from the player with the ball to avoid contact.

 

[Parra]

This every day of the week. Hunt kept Slater out of the Aus and Qld jersey for a good 3 years. Had the ability to play anywhere in the backline, at the time and possibly still could have been the better player.

They are all Queenslanders. f**k wasting money that has been generated by the NSWRL to benefit Queensland. They can piss off and run their own comp. Same goes for NZ & England. Be buggered if money made here should be used to prop up the opposition.

 

[Brutus]

Lote Tuqiri was pretty good when he left league....

Gee he was piss poor at Henson Park today.

 

[Iafeta]

Way too much fuss is made of players threatening to leave the game or wanting to come back.

Bugger em I reckon - put the $ into developing the next superstars

Exactly. The same thing happened 10 years ago with Turiqi, Sailor and Rogers. People were in uproar. Sailor was fairly average at union, and all three of them came back within a few years anyway. All that announcement did IMO was get Greg "I get paid to do charity work" Inglis and the Hayne-Plane get onto their managers to start some 'meaningful dialog' with French rah-rah... knowing they could get a top up from Dave Smith to keep them here and it not be a breach of the cap. Inglis is always up for that, massive overs for charity work plus a speed boat.