Josh Kerr

[TomRedVRiver]

Just to clarify... the 2 you mentiomed from our 20s are 186cm 106kg and 185cm 103kg...
Thats not in the same size bracket as Kerr. Kerr is 198cm 115kgs... thats a big 20 year old.
They may have potential but going by those stats they definitely dont have the size to compete with Kerr.

Doc, I see what you're saying, but really when it comes down to it the size means nothing if they don't have the heart or the skill.
Luckily Josh Kerr looks like he's going to be a strong player in the future, but the size argument is a little bit invalid I feel. Look at Paul Gallen (180cms 104kgs), he's been the NSW and Australian lock for years, then look at players like Matt Groat, Rory O'Brien and Shannon Wakeman. They're all huge guys who never delivered. Promising juniors who never kicked on because they didn't have the heart or the skill-set. I'd take a smaller forward like Frizell over a big guy like Shannon Boyd ANYDAY of the week.

 

[The Doc]

Yes I agree that's a big young prop. Dimensions aside (though they are still sizeable young dragons) my main point comes back to this: if our own young players are performing better and have achieved a higher win rate in the 20s this year - which cannot happen without a dominate front row - then look first at those men we have within. That's all. Melbourne will not make the eight.

Will check stats closer from hence.

I understand ur logic dude. Not having a go at you.
Just sometimes a big forward can play well without the team winning.
Frizzell for example, has been a standout up front, but other players in the team contribute to our low ranking on the ladder.
Im not saying Kerr is a gun, but with that size at his age he sure has alot going for him future wise...
Id even go as far as saying he has more going for him then our under 20s forwards going on size alone.
103kg and 106 kg is JDB weight... i love JDB but he is no big forward by any means.

 

[The Doc]

Doc, I see what you're saying, but really when it comes down to it the size means nothing if they don't have the heart or the skill.
Luckily Josh Kerr looks like he's going to be a strong player in the future, but the size argument is a little bit invalid I feel. Look at Paul Gallen (180cms 104kgs), he's been the NSW and Australian lock for years, then look at players like Matt Groat, Rory O'Brien and Shannon Wakeman. They're all huge guys who never delivered. Promising juniors who never kicked on because they didn't have the heart or the skill-set. I'd take a smaller forward like Frizell over a big guy like Shannon Boyd ANYDAY of the week.

Agree... but... if he has skill to go with that size???
Would you rather Gallen at 104 with skill or Kasiano at 125kg with skill?
Id go the big boy all day every day personally.
Not every forward is 115kg plus... but it doesnt hurt to have a couple that have heart and skill.
We will know in due time how Kerr goes... i for one have my fingers crossed he has some skill to go with that size.
Kerr and Leilua being so young, with size, Leilua has skill, if Kerr has skill also then dammm things are looking good going forward.

 

[TomRedVRiver]

Agree... but... if he has skill to go with that size???
Would you rather Gallen at 104 with skill or Kasiano at 125kg with skill?
Id go the big boy all day every day personally.
Not every forward is 115kg plus... but it doesnt hurt to have a couple that have heart and skill.
We will know in due time how Kerr goes... i for one have my fingers crossed he has some skill to go with that size.
Kerr and Leilua being so young, with size, Leilua has skill, if Kerr has skill also then dammm things are looking good going forward.

Honestly i'd rather Gallen, because both players have shown a level of skill and Kasiano is a 20 minute bench player. Gallen is the NSW lock who plays 80 minutes and makes 50 tackles a game.

It's all about the footwork these days with the big forwards. Guys like Bromwich, Woods and Merrin, they're killing it with their footwork and they even have that pass or offload in them close to the line.
Agree with you about Leilua though, Kerr looks to be great too. I'm excited for the future! Let's just make sure we lock up Leilua first.

 

[The Doc]

Honestly i'd rather Gallen, because both players have shown a level of skill and Kasiano is a 20 minute bench player. Gallen is the NSW lock who plays 80 minutes and makes 50 tackles a game.

It's all about the footwork these days with the big forwards. Guys like Bromwich, Woods and Merrin, they're killing it with their footwork and they even have that pass or offload in them close to the line.
Agree with you about Leilua though, Kerr looks to be great too. I'm excited for the future! Let's just make sure we lock up Leilua first.

Its all about mixing the size with skill. If they dont have skill they need the heart with size.
And i get what your saying about Gallen vs Kasiano... but, i dont think either of our 2 under 20s guys or Kerr will be 80 minute forwards.
I dont think there will be much difference in on field time given there ages and positions.
Kasiano comes on and single handedly changes the game for the dogs... because of his size and skill.
I think Leilua will be the same type of player for us... one more with that size and some skill sure as hell wont hurt our cause lol
Mate i love my team, ill support my team no matter what, even when we signed the butcher guy, i wasnt negative at all, at the end of the day you never know who will turn into what.
He flopped, he got sent packing. Shit happens.
I for one am really looking forward to seeing these young monsters be the next bailey and ryles of our forward pack!!!
And milne being our next gasnier (or as close to a gasnier as one can possibly get)
Bring in the youngsters, let them bring some youthfullness into our squad.
Let the bright future begin now!!!!

 

[Slippery Morris]

Remember when we had Ryles and Bailey in the squad. One with Size the other a wrecking ball. A combination of both is good to have in your pack and I think that is what we will get with Kerr. Masoe is also a huge unit.

Forward pack is awesome and completely bashed the Cronulla pack on the weekend, it's just a matter of doing that consistently.

 

[BennyV]

Yes I agree that's a big young prop. Dimensions aside (though they are still sizeable young dragons) my main point comes back to this: if our own young players are performing better and have achieved a higher win rate in the 20s this year - which cannot happen without a dominate front row - then look first at those men we have within. That's all. Melbourne will not make the eight.

Will check stats closer from hence.

Without having an opinion on which players are better (since I haven't seen any of Kerr and haven't seen a huge amount of Jurd or Lawire) your argument is incredibly flawed sir. Just because the Dragons are coming first does not mean, in any way, that our props are automatically better options than props from other clubs and the team's position on the ladder should have little bearing on who we choose to sign. It's a team sport, the storm may be let down by by any number of other weaknesses across the park or even by the coach.

If Lawrie and Jurd are good enough, they will jump Kerr. If not, they will go somewhere else and we will have the better option.

 

[BennyV]

It doesn't matter where the kid comes from nor does it matter how many posts GeeJay 2 has his point is valid.

We have actually signed a U/20's player from another club and the question is should we have recruited internally first?

If this signing resulted in a proven performer from our U/20's leaving then you have to question the worth of the signing.

Obviously Kerr will get the nod over somebody else already within our club
and if Kerr turns out to be a fizzer everyone will be back on the hurdy gurdy going around in circles saying exactly what GeeJay 2 posted.

Again, logic is very odd. Who cares where they come from, Kerr is a better prospect then he should 100% be signed over the others. Bias towards local juniors purely because of their roots is how we end up with planks like Hunt and Rein for so long.

Again, I don't know if they made the right call because I haven't watched enough of the 3 of them play (and knowing our recruitment, they likely haven't made the right call), but to loosely claim that we should focus on our juniors purely because they are our juniors, and forego better options because of that, is madness.

 

[Old Timer]

Again, logic is very odd. Who cares where they come from, Kerr is a better prospect then he should 100% be signed over the others. Bias towards local juniors purely because of their roots is how we end up with planks like Hunt and Rein for so long.

Again, I don't know if they made the right call because I haven't watched enough of the 3 of them play (and knowing our recruitment, they likely haven't made the right call), but to loosely claim that we should focus on our juniors purely because they are our juniors, and forego better options because of that, is madness.

Benny V read the whole post and those posts relating to it rather than single out 1 line of the post.
The point was made purely in response to several posts.
My point was about proven performers from within our own system not signed such as Leilua.
If we can't sign them then by all means someone from outside is OK but best we try and sign our own good one's first or make the admission we won't be signing Leilua or whoever and we will be recruiting externally.
I am not suggesting that all those from within our own system are keepers.

 

[Old Timer]

Without having an opinion on which players are better (since I haven't seen any of Kerr and haven't seen a huge amount of Jurd or Lawire) your argument is incredibly flawed sir. Just because the Dragons are coming first does not mean, in any way, that our props are automatically better options than props from other clubs and the team's position on the ladder should have little bearing on who we choose to sign. It's a team sport, the storm may be let down by by any number of other weaknesses across the park or even by the coach.

If Lawrie and Jurd are good enough, they will jump Kerr. If not, they will go somewhere else and we will have the better option.

I contest that your last paragraph is the issue at hand but your analogy is not entirely correct.

Kerr is already signed for 3 years and Lawrie and Jurd (who I believe have played very well) are potentially not signed and who may be prove to be better (subjective) can only jump Kerr if they remain at our club.

If they leave the club we could well end up with a plank with no one to leap frog him. Further exacerbated if Leila also remains unsigned.

The poster who presented this argument originally was of the opinion (hopefully well informed) that Lawrie and Jurd were worth keeping.

Some times you are damned if you do vice versa however the emotion of Bird rides high in the forum and people argue this way for fear of a repeat.

 

[Dragsters]

I would hazard a geuss to say that player negotiations are not always reliant upon each other.

It's quite possible and highly likely that the Kerr and Leilua negotiations were running simultaneously.

With Kerr coming to terms and committing to the dragons offer and Leilua possibly yet to decide his future.

It would be negligent of the club to not secure a target player once they agree to terms simply because another player has not yet been secured.

If we held out on Kerr and Leilua moves on then we risk losing both and that would just be dumb.

As it stands we have one of them and are still a chance of having them both.

 

[The Doc]

I contest that your last paragraph is the issue at hand but your analogy is not entirely correct.

Kerr is already signed for 3 years and Lawrie and Jurd (who I believe have played very well) are potentially not signed and who may be prove to be better (subjective) can only jump Kerr if they remain at our club.

If they leave the club we could well end up with a plank with no one to leap frog him. Further exacerbated if Leila also remains unsigned.

The poster who presented this argument originally was of the opinion (hopefully well informed) that Lawrie and Jurd were worth keeping.

Some times you are damned if you do vice versa however the emotion of Bird rides high in the forum and people argue this way for fear of a repeat.

All good points old timer... but the thing with the bird situation is as follows:
For every one bird, you will get 5 hastings -beau henrys etc.
Its all a gamble, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.
I remember that young forward a couple of years back, we lost him to the roosters, keru or seru or whatever...
Some were upset, i was pissed off back in the day when we lost beau henry... not all are destined to shine in first grade.
Lets all look forward to Kerr and Leilua (fingers crossed) along with big Mose and sims and friz and thompson and packer and AhMau putting some fear factor back into our forward pack.

 

[Old Timer]

Lots of people were posting about our juniors being the future etc etc
Lots of people posting our future lies within etc etc
Lots of people posting we must keep all our good juniors etc etc
The announcement gets made we signed an U/20 player from Melbourne and some jump on board saying thats great and a lot of explanations as to why we should accept that as being good.
So much for the rock solid support for our juniors unless of course someone can legitimately post that Kerr is significantly better than what we have got.

 

[Old Timer]

I understand ur logic dude. Not having a go at you.
Just sometimes a big forward can play well without the team winning.
Frizzell for example, has been a standout up front, but other players in the team contribute to our low ranking on the ladder.
Im not saying Kerr is a gun, but with that size at his age he sure has alot going for him future wise...
Id even go as far as saying he has more going for him then our under 20s forwards going on size alone.
103kg and 106 kg is JDB weight... i love JDB but he is no big forward by any means.

I would be happy to take Kerr for JDB and keep the juniors who may at least realise their potential and offer more than the tackling machine with the man bun.

 

[2010]

Look at the bright side, he is young and big , if he turns out to be s good player he will be around for some years, we need players like him to build a team that could be around for some years

 

[Dragonslayer]

Lots of people were posting about our juniors being the future etc etc
Lots of people posting our future lies within etc etc
Lots of people posting we must keep all our good juniors etc etc
The announcement gets made we signed an U/20 player from Melbourne and some jump on board saying thats great and a lot of explanations as to why we should accept that as being good.
So much for the rock solid support for our juniors unless of course someone can legitimately post that Kerr is significantly better than what we have got.

OT, I appreciate where your coming from and I agree we need to focus on our up and coming juniors.
However, we also need to look into the future as well.
Of our current juniors:
Host is the tallest at 190cm -( he will play 1st grade) and weighs 105kg's
Jurd is 189cm and 106kg's
Lawrie (who is only 19) is 185cm and 103kg's
Leilua (if he re-signs and will play 1st grade) is 186cm and 112kg's
Sele (who is really next in line) is 182cm and 104kg's
Uele (who is only 19) is 178cm and 112kg's

Mose Masoe is a huge man he's 199cm and 130kg's, but he is 27 years old and already has a season out with and ACL problem.

Our new signing Kerr is 199cm and 115kg's and I think this is why we signed him. With Host being the next tallest we lack size going forward. I'm not just talking height but I'm saying height/weight ratio.

Will Kerr be a success or failure? who knows, but with Host, Leilua (hopefully) and Sele our forward stocks look ok. We don't know for sure who will re-sign with us at the end of 2017 (many of our forwards are off contract then). We do know we have LAM and Friz till 2018 and Sims to 2019.

As far as the other juniors mentioned above, Jurd is the only one who needs urgent attention as he is already 20 and would have to play NSW cup next year at least. Uele and Lawrie can still play u20's I believe.
I suppose all their futures lie with Matty Head and wether he see's them being able to handle the rise in class. If so we should be talking with them and getting them secured sooner than later.

 

[Old Timer]

As I keep saying I think the future is in our good juniors and would be happy if we kept them and would have happily let JT or JDB go for the procurement of Kerr if that is what we consider necessary.
In fact just about all of the forwards you have named are bigger than Jt & JDB and the kids will only get bigger.
Part of my angst is about sacrificing our juniors with potential to sign juniors with potential when in fact we hold onto people who never fulfilled their potential.
We get our recruitment timing out of kilter and as I said earlier if the club made an announcement about who we have retained, who we couldn't retain and who we have purchased that would take the unknown out of it.
If Leilua is gone then so be it but if buying Kerr in anyway diminishes our ability to hold onto Leilua then I will be pissed off.
Trouble is will we ever know the truth about all the negotiations probably not.

 

[watatank]

I haven't seen Kerr play but he will add depth to our middle forwards and his background suggests he has some upside. Hopefully he can be more than that but time will tell.

I think people are reading far too much into his signing, which will have nothing to do with whether or not we keep Leilua on or not. If there's any signing that this thread could be about, it will be the signing of Thompson, who will also impact on Host getting minutes.

Lawrie has already trained with NRL squad and played NSW Cup, and he is still eliglible for NYC next year. It seems he's on the radar. Don't know much about Jurd.

 

[Sigurd]

I think it's a good idea to raid the juniors of other clubs. Specially clubs which are very strong in certain positions. Melbourne not only have outstanding forwards but plenty of depth and still plenty of years ahead of them. Need to look to juniors in Canberra, Gold Coast and Brisbane for halves (though only if it's in place of Widdop. He has formed a very poor combination with 4 or 5 halves in his time at the Dragons), Penrith for outside backs and etc.

I was highly gratified to see Frizzell completely dominate Wade Graham on the weekend. A Scumulla junior leaving due to being stuck behind an overrated import. Over the last several years it's the Dragons who have typically been on the receiving end of such scenarios.

 

[Sigurd]

As I keep saying I think the future is in our good juniors and would be happy if we kept them and would have happily let JT or JDB go for the procurement of Kerr if that is what we consider necessary.
In fact just about all of the forwards you have named are bigger than Jt & JDB and the kids will only get bigger.
Part of my angst is about sacrificing our juniors with potential to sign juniors with potential when in fact we hold onto people who never fulfilled their potential.
We get our recruitment timing out of kilter and as I said earlier if the club made an announcement about who we have retained, who we couldn't retain and who we have purchased that would take the unknown out of it.
If Leilua is gone then so be it but if buying Kerr in anyway diminishes our ability to hold onto Leilua then I will be pissed off.
Trouble is will we ever know the truth about all the negotiations probably not.

Why would you want JDB to go? JT... the jury is still out. Good player but injury prone and inconsistent. JDB has played a few bad games but he is usually one of the best, as he was against the much vaunted Scum pack last weekend. He is average as a ball player but that would still make him the best ball player in the team.