Flanno's New Signings

[dragon thomo]

The problem Shiloh is that our dickhead halfback does not utilise Suli enough. Hunt always wants the ball and heads to the right side of the field. He would rather pass it to Bird. Who knows why.

 

[maestro1]

Where is Max Feargai playing next season?

 

[shiloh dc]

The problem Shiloh is that our dickhead halfback does not utilise Suli enough. Hunt always wants the ball and heads to the right side of the field. He would rather pass it to Bird. Who knows why.

Fair point but also if you are not scoring tries you should be setting them up for your winger. Now i don't know Suli's assist numbers but i can't imagine they are pretty. It's the lack of legwork to create the overlap that really curtails his ability.

 

[mattw5]

There is one stat on Suli that basically sums it up - 24 tries in 137 games.
Is there another centre in the NRL with worse try scoring stats than this?
Suli is extremely one dimensional with little or no legwork.
The only saving grace is that he has improved since he joined the Dragons.

He makes more metres, breaks more tackles then most & is defensively good also which is as important if not more wingers are paid to score tries.

 

[maestro1]

The halves unlock your centres......look at the try Cleary set up for Alamotti. Hunt and Flanno rarely set up their centres the way Hughes, Cleary, Reynolds and DCE do. Suli has had to rely on power running to bust the defense. Good halves would have him running lines like Holmes does off Dearden, or Ramien does off Trindall, or Meaney does off Hughes, etc. We rarely see our centres or back towers running the Brixton Nikora type runs off our halves. Too much crabby bullshit and to be quite frank, I don't believe Hunt has the skills to do this regularly. I used to get so frustrated watching Frizzell play for us and trying to run over the top of the defence off a Ben Hunt ball. He would then go into Origin and run through gaps and score or make breaks and the defence wouldn't even touch him. It is a really poor that Hunt doesn't have this skill. You watch Lomax next year where he will be put through holes by Gutho, Brown and Moses.

 

[qld redvee]

Fair point but also if you are not scoring tries you should be setting them up for your winger. Now i don't know Suli's assist numbers but i can't imagine they are pretty. It's the lack of legwork to create the overlap that really curtails his ability.

Its also the problem that we haven't got forwards to create holes in defence and then we haven't got a playmaker that can do much apart from crash plays.

 

[mattw5]

Where is Max Feargai playing next season?

Dolphins i heard.

 

[justadragon]

For me, we will not get a run at the top 4 before 2028 at best (unlikely) bcs we are facing so much potential team turnover, both retirements and dead wood. This could be great in the longer term and could revive the club, but in the meantime a lot of change has to be managed.

2027 - new contract for coach Flanno?
2025 - Hunt gone end 2025
2025 - JDB contract ends end 2025
2025 - Kyle Flanagan contract ends end 2025
2025 - Jacob Liddle contract ends end 2025 with mutual option for 2026
2026 - Lawrie and Ravawala and Cook gone end 2026
2026 - Hame Sele contract ends end 2026
2026 - Sua 28 y.o.contract ends end 2026, so probably re-sign (crystal ball)
2026 - Sloane contract ends end 2026
2027 - Val 31 y.o.and last year of his contract
2027 - Suli 28 y.o.and last year if his contract

The three year contracts for Rava, Laurie and Suli were just dumb. Three year contracts are for players that other teams are also chasing, not for just average guys.

Anyway, 2028 seems a long way off but there are a lot of positions to fill over time and a lot of competition for players. I hope that Flanno has his scouts out looking right now for young players with a future bcs trying to get quality established players away from other teams under the Nov 1 rule is a planning nightmare. The good thing is, as it stands, is that young players can see that - with this turnover - there is a chance of a future at the dragons.

We have our own juniors that should be seeing the light now.

 

[justadragon]

i wish we could go back to the days when i grew up and we choked in the finals. Ill take going back to being a choker to what we have now any day. we didnt know how good we had it.

We are still no different sammy, its just that now we choke prior to getting into finals

 

[since77]

There is one stat on Suli that basically sums it up - 24 tries in 137 games.
Is there another centre in the NRL with worse try scoring stats than this?
Suli is extremely one dimensional with little or no legwork.
The only saving grace is that he has improved since he joined the Dragons.

Stats again. Stats used like this are misleading, as is the case with Hunt and his famous try assists nonsense.
A stat that might help is for you to go and have a look at how many tries who ever played the other centre position for us in the same games has scored. I'd bet its a pretty similar stat. Which would suggest that the actual problem is where our centres get the ball, how often they get the ball in attacking opportunities and why our attack with our supposedly marquee number 7 is so lame.
Drop Suli into the Storm, Panthers or Roosters, geez even the Bulldogs sides and he'd be having a field day.
He's so not the problem.

 

[blacksafake]

The halves unlock your centres......look at the try Cleary set up for Alamotti. Hunt and Flanno rarely set up their centres the way Hughes, Cleary, Reynolds and DCE do. Suli has had to rely on power running to bust the defense. Good halves would have him running lines like Holmes does off Dearden, or Ramien does off Trindall, or Meaney does off Hughes, etc. We rarely see our centres or back towers running the Brixton Nikora type runs off our halves. Too much crabby bullshit and to be quite frank, I don't believe Hunt has the skills to do this regularly. I used to get so frustrated watching Frizzell play for us and trying to run over the top of the defence off a Ben Hunt ball. He would then go into Origin and run through gaps and score or make breaks and the defence wouldn't even touch him. It is a really poor that Hunt doesn't have this skill. You watch Lomax next year where he will be put through holes by Gutho, Brown and Moses.

This

 

[Jubilee]

Wests Tigers were interested in luring him back. He was one of the main players worth keeping; he was in great form this season. It showed when he got injured we missed him. His defence is underrated, and he makes significant yardage with his carries. Anything less than three years would be crazy, as he is coming into his prime. With expansion on the horizon, it’s important to lock up any good players where possible, because signing players will only become harder, and we already struggle with recruitment. As for our youth for years they have been hyped up but to be brutally honest aside from Robson, Wishart, Garrick & Lomax (Only this season) have excelled the rest have been average at best i am not prepared to fall into a false sense of security around our juniors.

Losing Cody Ramsay was a brutal blow to the team.

 

[Mojo]

Its also the problem that we haven't got forwards to create holes in defence and then we haven't got a playmaker that can do much apart from crash plays.

It pains me to say it but I can't think of anything about the Dragons over the past few years that isn't a problem - with the exception of our hooker position and, now with the Holmes signing, our centres for the next couple of years.

 

[Phantom V]

The halves unlock your centres......look at the try Cleary set up for Alamotti. Hunt and Flanno rarely set up their centres the way Hughes, Cleary, Reynolds and DCE do. Suli has had to rely on power running to bust the defense. Good halves would have him running lines like Holmes does off Dearden, or Ramien does off Trindall, or Meaney does off Hughes, etc. We rarely see our centres or back towers running the Brixton Nikora type runs off our halves. Too much crabby bullshit and to be quite frank, I don't believe Hunt has the skills to do this regularly. I used to get so frustrated watching Frizzell play for us and trying to run over the top of the defence off a Ben Hunt ball. He would then go into Origin and run through gaps and score or make breaks and the defence wouldn't even touch him. It is a really poor that Hunt doesn't have this skill. You watch Lomax next year where he will be put through holes by Gutho, Brown and Moses.

This!!

 

[TheRev]

Dolphins i heard.

I havent heard it confirmed anywhere, but I assume its a Top30 role as a backup ctr.. but on the cheap.. im not sure what we were going to offer him here, but I believe it wasn't enough.. wouldnt the fans lose their minds if Max exceeds expectations in another jersey..

 

[redv13]

Disagree on Suli he is worth 3 years

Suli is a beast. Love the bloke, absolute wrecking ball when he gets time and space to do his thing

 

[SnowDragon]

Sorry, but some of the crap we all come up with at times…

Suli was a beast for us this year. He has a style that creates space for others, he makes meters on top and his defence is good, and yet people want to refer to a certain stat and throw him on a pile. It’s totally unbelievable to me lol, but hey im always trying to be a glass half full kind of guy.

guess we need to fill in time until the next sighting though

 

[TheRev]

As for Suli, hes one of our better players.. we can make a team out of guys like him.. I do get he's not in Holmes territory.. but as others have said we are also very much a right hand dominant attacking side due to Ben Hunt & Zac Lomax.. next year is going to be completely different whether Hunt is here or not.. Holmes will be left-side and that ball needs to find him.. double that if JAC is outside him.

Its also his ball carries though.. and the way he asserts himself over the opposition physically.. other players can come off the back of that.

 

[Ruby Roundhouse]

Hunt needs to go, he is not a leader, and he clogs up the attack. We need creativity and halves that can defend, not a turnstile.

 

[mattw5]

E

Hunt needs to go, he is not a leader, and he clogs up the attack. We need creativity and halves that can defend, not a turnstile.

Easier said than done.