I think the time has come to bite the bullet and clean out the playing stocks yet again. Some of these "high profile" players that we have need to have contracts torn up. David Kidwell, Nigel Vagana, Dean Widders, Jeremy Smith, Ben Rogers all need to go IMO. Sack the lot of them, pay them out or p1ss them off to superleague or whatever has to be done. You can probably add Eddie Paea to that list as well. I have put a lot of faith in the kid but after watching him get run over a couple of times yesterday, my opinion has changed. A year or two ago I would have put him in the same boat as Mitchell Pearce but I have watched both, closely this year and Mitchell Pearce tackles his nuts off every game. Eddie doesn't even slow them down. It is time to focus on retaining the good players that we have at the club, Wing, Ndaira, Luke, Asotasi and cut the over rated hacks that had their best seasons 5 years ago. We need to buy some guys who are hungry to win. We need to rid the club of this "oh no, we are behind again, I guess we are going to lose now attitude." If we don't get a new attitude into the club then the current attitude will filter its way down into the juniors and we will be up the creek for years to come.
Vagana is retiriring, and we have already got a replacement in Luke Lewis coming.
So if we let Kidwell,Widders, Rogers & Jeremy Smith go, then that provided a fair bit of cap room to purchase some FORM players.
now I believe we dont need to fill those four spots that will be vacant from those players.
we might need two players out of those four, which increases our chance to sign two in-form players.
UFG- Up for grabs
Talanoa, Merritt, UFG, Lewis, Huihahau, Wing, UFG/Sandow, Greenfield, Luke, Asotasi, Faalogo, UFG, Sutton
I still cant say i rate Champion, so cementing his spot is far from likely atm, I think Sandow will probably get the gig in 09, but anything can happen..so at this stage, the no 7 spot is vacant. Sandow needs to show more of what he has provided for the rabbitohs for the rest of the year and hopefully improve his defence, Luke Capewell is an option at fullback, but we will have to see how he goes for the remainder of the season.
Kidwell's spot is vacant too, so id like someone like Simon Mannering to come to us, who is also a decent player in the backline, he is still got another year at the warriors at least.
So hopefully he can have a look at one of Luck, Johnson or Tupou to join our ranks next season.