Gee, Leilua and Tapine look good

[Joel-22]

they showed the other (and just as big) sides of their games tonight: Lazy and stupid.

Tpj on the other hand was depressing to watch tonight. The type of mongrel we need.

Imagine him lining up next to the saifitis at the moment. And yet we end up signing some kid that can't make the raiders side instead. I know the raiders chased him hard (like they did tapine) but we need to be smarter with our junior retention.

I'm calling it now. He'll be a great signing

 

[Spot On]

They showed the other (and just as big) sides of their games tonight: lazy and stupid.

TPJ on the other hand was depressing to watch tonight. The type of mongrel we need.

Imagine him lining up next to the Saifitis at the moment. And yet we end up signing some kid that can't make the Raiders side instead. I know the Raiders chased him hard (like they did Tapine) but we need to be smarter with our junior retention.

Tapine only looks interested at one end of the field. Certainly didn't want to get involved in the tough stuff when they needed some metres. Not his go.

 

[Noname36]

Tapine only looks interested at one end of the field. Certainly didn't want to get involved in the tough stuff when they needed some metres. Not his go.

He was struggling to get back onside all night and he didn't play many minutes as it is. Either lazy or just doesn't have the fitness.

 

[Spot On]

Hmmm, didn't seem to be struggling for fitness when 10m out from the Canterbury line 2 weeks ago.

 

[Glendale]

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...a-raiders-transformation-20160923-grmv0y.html

I'm not bringing this up to moan about Leilua or anything. Just an interesting read.

I guess it might be slightly irrelevant nowadays, because although he only left last year, there's been a f*** load of change at the club since and there's been a new culture established under Browny. But an interesting read nonetheless. BJ telling it exactly how it is.

 

[Noname36]

Sounds like it was the right move for everyone and I feel no reason to pass out any blame. Stone did a lot of things wrong but I don't think the way he handled BJ when he came back overweight was one of them. Seems like a lot of justification from BJ in the article (Alex, Bennett, etc) but I'm not sure the favouritism angle really holds up when BJ was lucky himself that Stone was so weak and ended up letting him start the season in 2015 despite the empty threat he was going to be dropped.

At the end of the day I've been over the BJ thing since before it happened and am still relieved he's gone - it's worked out in the best interests for everyone.

Although I'd hate to see that merkin Tapine win a premiership I have no ill feelings towards BJ - I'm happy it's worked out for him because he needs a certain type of environment that not every club will cater for.

 

[Spot On]

He needed to grow up eventually and he seemingly has. That's the story really.

 

[Pete Cash]

Im not a huge fan of players putting the boot in like that tbh. I hated it when people wrote puff pieces about dugan and basically justified his idiocy

As you say spot on some players take a bit longer to mature. I hope for the raiders sake this is a forever thing with bj. I just dont think its necessary to bury the knights like that.

 

[Frederick]

Im not a huge fan of players putting the boot in like that tbh. I hated it when people wrote puff pieces about dugan and basically justified his idiocy

As you say spot on some players take a bit longer to mature. I hope for the raiders sake this is a forever thing with bj. I just dont think its necessary to bury the knights like that.

Personally I think it was necessary as it proves to the world just how toxic our club culture has been, and how much the inmates really did run the asylum. It also perfectly justifies Browns actions in dumping a host of first grade players in favour of rookies this year.

 

[Spot On]

Personally I think it was necessary as it proves to the world just how toxic our club culture has been, and how much the inmates really did run the asylum. It also perfectly justifies Browns actions in dumping a host of first grade players in favour of rookies this year.

Yep.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

Interesting article...

I never even thought about it, but the club really did collapse after McKinnons injury didnt it.

The club had a lot of problems even before that, but i think the few people that held it all together just stopped caring after that...

 

[Silent Knight]

That article screamed out one blatantly obvious thing to me. We're never really going to grow up and move past this local firsts crap. While a professionally run club like the Raiders will bring in the players they need based on what they can bring to the team we're still sourcing players based on their postcode. We don't need the likes of Josh Hodgson, Aiden Sezer, Joey Leilua, Iosia Soliola, Blake Austin, Kurt Baptiste or Junior Paulo. We just need our illustrious CEO to pick up the phone and give Lakes United a call. One golden batch of players from long ago and that means the sun shines out of the ass of Newcastle juniors forever more. After all most NRL clubs are just bursting at the seams with the number of quality Newcastle juniors at their disposal.

 

[mozza91]

i think the article says more about Leilua than the club to be honest. He wasn't given an extended break that he wanted and still came back unfit and overweight? He takes no responsibility for getting himself in that state and harbours a grudge against Stone and the club as a result. Even though he's in great form he's a brainless moron and a grub. I'm glad he's no longer here.

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

There's a lot to be said about this article and club culture. We did seem to lose it more after Alex's injury.
The 'local' slant gets tossed back and forward a lot.
For many years we had a very strong local league with no NRL club. We'd see our local talent leave and head off to the "Big League" and some would shine in it. I'd attend local games every week with my father and he scouted for a Sydney club and played a part in getting some players career starts.
When we got the NRL gig we acknowledged the depth of local talent that had been a breeding ground for the Sydney clubs.
Brisbane has a lot in common with us.
The thing is, we have recognised the need to bring players in right through our NRL term. Some of those (Smith, McManus, Scott to an extent ...list goes on) we accept and recognise as being part of the club and a "Newie Boy" even if they came from elsewhere. It's more difficult for them and they need to earn the tag instead of being automatically awarded it.
We have players now who won't earn the tag. I doubt BJ ever would have with us.

 

[Noname36]

I know it's our favourite thing to do to beat up on the club all the time but I'm gonna take swipes/excuses from BJ Leilua with a grain of salt to be honest.

I suppose with the article you've just got to look at it from this perspective: could you imagine other non-Newcastle born players from the period like Smith or Gags or Scott saying the same thing? Absolutely not and if they felt they were being discrimated against because they weren't from Newcastle they would have left in a heartbeat (Scott left for another reason entirely). It seems BJ's idea of favourtism would be to let him have an extended off season when he was already considerably out of shape. BJ didn't just ask for extra time off, the likes of Smith and Scott were also pissed off because he wasn't training properly when he did come back. He was upsetting the rest of the squad. Stone didn't have many options and yet he still let the bloke keep his spot come round 1 despite it all which I suppose was our first real indication of how weak he was.

Again, this has worked out well for everyone.

 

[Glendale]

I suppose with the article you've just got to look at it from this perspective: could you imagine other non-Newcastle born players from the period like Smith or Gags or Scott saying the same thing? Absolutely not and if they felt they were being discrimated against because they weren't from Newcastle they would have left in a heartbeat (Scott left for another reason entirely).

That's a good point actually. You can look at Gagai, a player of similar age and experience to BJ, who came from Queensland with no previous affiliation with the club and re-signed with US when his stocks were at their highest despite heavy interest from the Broncos which would have been extremely tempting, because he quite clearly loves the club. The main reason BJ left was because he had a falling out with the coach, simple. Having said that, I have little doubt that the favouritism of old blokes and local players was going on behind the scenes, and that the culture had become toxic.

 

[slotmachine]

Gagai re-signed because Hagan gave him double what Brisbane offered.

 

[Spot On]

Bloke is on squillions. Squillions I say.

 

[Glendale]

Gagai re-signed because Hagan gave him double what Brisbane offered.

I'm well aware that Master Hagan bent over to the demands of anything that moved (that's why he's in my picture lol) and in Gagai's case I think he's definitely on overs. But this is Brisbane we're talking about. What they want they get. Their offer would have been more then healthy. (Difference to us is about a quarter of it would have come off their cap). Plus it was where he grew up and the club he made his debut for plus the Wayne connection. Would have been very tempting. My point is that loyalty and love for the club had a big part in it as well.

 

[slotmachine]

Broncos offer was literally half.

Gagai had 500000 reasons that weren't loyalty to stay.