Poupou Escobar
Post Whore
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The relevance is that big fast bastards will address one of our biggest weaknesses this year - lack of speed+power on the edges.
Our other weakness this year - lack of direction and creativity - will be addressed by Sandow and Roberts.
Which is why we were able to buy so many of them and still spend big on Tonga and Sandow.
The fact is we've massively improved our one-on-one ability on the edges just by adding speed and power. You might notice as well that all of these fringe first graders are young, bringing the possibility of improvement. And even the ones who don't walk into first grade next year will add to our club's depth.
Finally, these kinds of players (big, fast no-names) fit perfectly into the kind of football we're trying to play.
We've also lost a lot of lazy, enigmatic deadshits in the past couple of years. Gone are several players with plenty of skill but who don't try hard enough.
In this day and age, Sandow and Tonga are brilliant signings to address our shortcomings (halves and centres). The rest of the newcomers - young unknowns - are exactly the kinds of players the successful clubs bring into their squads every year. We also have all the young players we re-signed this year who will play an important role in our squad in 2012.
Two high profile signings is enough.
Because halves (and fullbacks and hookers) are more important than edge forwards. That's why Melbourne were happy to let everyone go (including Blair next year) as long as they kept Smith, Cronk and Slater.
They're happy to surround them with no-names.
Because he would have wanted more than a one-year deal. And if we'd kept him we would have been unable to address the other shortfalls in our squad. If Mateo was under contract next year we either don't sign Sandow, or our depth suffers.
Edge forwards are a dime a dozen (we had so many we were able to play two of them at centre for half the season), which is why we've been able to sign about a dozen of them for next year.
Then there's the school of thought, epitomised by the Storm, that you don't pay elite money for anyone outside the team's spine (1, 6, 7, 9).
Mateo might be a special attacking player but he's a defensive weakness, and I put it to you that Smith, Lasalo, Maitua, and half (or more) of the new edge forwards coming next year are all better defenders than Feleti. And all on a lot less money.
That's the kind of short-sighted thinking that got us into this mess.
At the time Mateo signed with the Warriors we needed halves more than anything, and the people in charge wanted to keep some cap space free to get one. That meant not paying Mateo the money he wanted.
As it turns out we had to wait a year to buy that halfback, but we were very lucky we were in a position, salary-cap-wise, to beat Souths' offer.
If we still had Mateo it wouldn't have happened.
No, re-signing Mortimer was exactly what we needed to do. We were weak in the halves and here we found a young, home-grown one who was playing well. The club had no choice but to sign him. Nobody could have predicted he would die in the arse.
As for re-signing Horo, he gives us Mateo's shit defence, as well as half the attacking ability at half the price. It's a fair swap really. Under the salary cap you can't have the best players at every position, and Horo gives us a good enough first grade edge forward, while still allowing us to spend big in more important areas of the field (like halfback).
Anyway, Horo will almost certainly be coming off the bench all next year.
As for Webb, Walker, Hicks and Whatuira, none of them affected our salary cap past this year, meaning none of them stopped us signing new players for 2012 and beyond. Mateo certainly would have. Also, they all play different positions to Mateo, and were all signed to address perceived holes in the squad (replacing Cayless, Grothe and Tahu).
It would have been nice to be able to sign younger or better players but you don't get to choose who comes off contract each year. You can only sign the players available.
Mate, you weren't 'reading between the lines'; you were taking everything at face value.
In the end, the club offered Mateo what they thought he was worth and another club offered more. We would have been idiots to match that, or at least desperate.
He coached the team to play to its strengths (which weren't many). That means he allowed one single player (guess who) to play what was in front of him, and everyone else played a clearly defined role.
That one player came equal first in the NRL for try assists and third for linebreak assists.
I think if we had played any less structured we would have been lucky not to lose by 50 every week.
Our only chance of a win this year was to dominate possession, and that means keeping the offloads to a minimum.
Next year, with more speed out wide and a dynamite attacking half, we'll be able to play with a lot more flair. But this year that kind of play would have only led to a downward possession spiral every week.
I think Horo's as bad as Mateo but like I've already said, he's on half the money. As for our edge defence, it was indeed poor but that's because we didn't have any centres (probably the most important defensive position on the field) for half the season.
Definitely. To be honest I'd be happy to have Inu back but not on huge money.
