KOE (ex Canterbury Cup) and Jersey Flegg

[baggygreen man]

Phooey. The Pathways scouts not Flanagan are responsible for the lift in our junior fortunes with some astute buys from the St Pats nursery and Qld, most well before he arrived. Flegg have hit a brick wall and slipping down the ladder fast. Ressies showing more consistency tho, despite all the chopping and changing. Still have lost 6 and are sitting 7th on the ladder. Not exactly whooping along.

 

[baggygreen man]

Hoping our Pathway scouts will be taking a squizz at the upcoming National Schools Champs as we need a further injection of talent in both our jr rep sides.

 

[hewi]

What a crap day, both sides beaten

 

[TheRev]

Hard to get motivated for NSW Cup after 2 losses for the day, and in the end we lost this game too (14-26)... but some notes:

o Tamale some huge runs from fullback again.. def a lot more impact vs from centre.. shame hes leaving, though there is a lot more to fullback than just running hard, but there is promise in him for sure.
o AlecT a couple of errors early... was a bit better in the 2nd half, but overall hasnt had a great game
o Nu Brown has had a few good moments, bit of pace and skill
o LKT has struggled a bit with the extra size and speed of nsw cup defenders, he did go up a cog at the end when we were chasing points.. but a long way from starring at reserve grade... but he is growing.
o Shereb unfortunately needed to cover Buchanans nsw duty, been solid enough but a few bad moments too.
o Egan had a couple of good moments.. thats promising for the future that he is looking more at home now.
o RyanC was fast and poking his head through all day
o Glover was probing
o Hard to notice Fifita on his return.. he reminds me of Saab only in forward form, no mongrel.. hes hard to like.
o Stewart was promoted.. he had a couple of moments (good and bad).. I thought he was RyanC at one point, but definitely needs heaps of time to adjust to this bigger/badder grade of football.. a bit like Egan has needed.
o SFinau was left side and had a few good runs, 1 good try


Our defence was the exact opposite of the wall it was in weeks gone by.. they scored on almost every opportunity, and a couple of dumb moments like a short drop off they caught and scored off and a kick off we let go dead.. in the end I think just missing some of the class we needed.. certainly in the contest though.. but the opposition was just a bit better overall.

 

[justadragon]

Highly disappointed in both these sides over the past few weeks, I had high hopes for both these sides, looks like we better invest some quality time into these guys before the season is done and dusted.

 

[Desperate Dragon]

Highly disappointed in both these sides over the past few weeks, I had high hopes for both these sides, looks like we better invest some quality time into these guys before the season is done and dusted.

If you look at the competition tables Justa, we are literally in the middle of the pack across all 3 grades.
We need an ongoing injection of new players in all the grades in the coming years.
Seems to be a high number of new young forwards coming through, but only a handful of outside backs.

 

[TheRev]

Seems to be a high number of new young forwards coming through, but only a handful of outside backs.

100%.. I will say there have been a couple we lost like Bostock and Schiller, maybe a Schoupp or a Morkos .. in amongst Stewart, Sloan, Amone and Bud.. but thats not really a lot of NRLish quality backs given many years of junior development have passed (some of that is covid related but other clubs were in the same boat). There is a huge gulf between this 19-20yr old Rumble/Williams/TPH/LKT/Buchanan batch.. and the 23yr old Feagais and 22yr old Sloan etc, with a couple of guys we bought in like SFinau, Tamale and CTui.. and last minute purchases like Glover or Ralph.

We have so many young props and 2nd rowers coming thru taking our 30+6 spots, that we have to be very careful with the remaining positions and who we bring through.. I guess you could argue that ultimately its the forward pack that matters most.. but I do feel like we need to make some decisions on some of these NSW Cup backs at end of season (feagais in particular).. I would really love a recruitment manager who could help us fill some of those spots for 2025.. surely Flanno can only watch so many junior football games... 1st grade is his #1 priority x1000.

 

[KogarahWarrior]

He has been on a train/trial deal since 2023 so likely is now on a DV. He has more upside than Muhleisen, yet Flanagan has given him Firsts game time. Haele has done his apprenticeship.

Imo in terms of talent, Haele is streets ahead of Muhleisen... I'd invest more time into him although Connor seems like a great bloke and has better defence. The difference is though that it's easier to coach defence into a player than natural attacking flair

 

[baggygreen man]

SFinau was left side and had a few good runs, 1 good try

Finau was initially picked at centre then bizarrely Sherab was put there. Dont mind us trying Sione at centre as it provides him with more options for when he finally is given a regular top grade spot.

 

[kit66]

I didn't know we've lost Tamale, that's a shame. We can't sign anyone good and we let our best young'ns go.

 

[baggygreen man]

We need an ongoing injection of new players in all the grades in the coming years.

Oh boy we sure do, but when are they arriving. Plenty of talk about big signings for Firsts yet little substance coming from our coach. Lets face it Flanagan you are no Bennett, Politis or Bellamy, even Gould, when it comes to luring top shelfers to our once famous club.

 

[baggygreen man]

I didn't know we've lost Tamale, that's a shame. We can't sign anyone good and we let our best young'ns go.

Sad aint it. He did tho have issues with his defense, terrific offensively but brittle defensively. Sione Finau is a sound defender and we know what he can do in attack, yet he has been unable to secure more than one match a season under our past two coaches. That is woeful use of a talented resource.

 

[baggygreen man]

Imo in terms of talent, Haele is streets ahead of Muhleisen... I'd invest more time into him although Connor seems like a great bloke and has better defence. The difference is though that it's easier to coach defence into a player than natural attacking flair

KW.

 

[TheRev]

Copy Paste from Steven Bates (Team Lists):

Both teams head over the ditch on Saturday to take on Warriors.
Cup remains mostly unchanged.
In Flegg, Quinn is out HIA. With TPH starting we will see another debut with Isaiah Ice Fagalilo coming onto the bench.

NSW CUP:

1. Savelio Tamale
2. Cooper Roberts
3. Ben Johnson
4. Jackson Shereb
5. Sione Finau
6. Lyhkan King-Togia
7. Jonah Glover
8. Ryan Couchman
9. Connor Muhleisen
10. Josh Coric
11. Dylan Egan
12. Dan Russell (c)
21. Fa’amanu Brown
Interchange
14. Haele Finau
16. Levi Pascoe
17. Alec Tuitavake
19. Viliami Fifita

JERSEY FLEGG:

1. Ben Rumble
2. Cain Barnes
3. Toby Miller
4. Ben Lavender
5. Jesse Williams
6. Tyler Peckham-Harris
7. Ashton Ward
8. Jacob Webster
9. Kyan Hjaltason (c)
10. Ryan Hutchinson
11. Kye Wright
20. Cyrus Stanley-Traill
13. Hamish Stewart
Interchange
14. Isaiah Fagalilo
15. Isaac Laughton
16. Finau Latu
17. Travis Barrett-Hancock

 

[TheRev]

TPH into 6 would be a lot of fun to see... Williams is back which will be huge...

Missing a tonne of talent due to origin again though.. upside is we get to see the U19 game, someone said Hutchinson has been bought into the qld team also.. the kid we cant even fit due to all the other forwards in that Dragons SG side..

 

[AyiosYiorgos]

Viliami Fifita How did he go last week?
Saw some highlights of the Tigers v Titans and you can see that Stefano Utoikamanu and Samuela Fainu are both improving, Fifita is about the same height and weight as to these guys, he is a couple of years older than Fainu and a year younger than Utoikamanu, he needs to start improving and pushing for a 1st grade position, has the height/weight to do so...

​

 

[TheRev]

Barely even noticed Fifita.. something is so off with this fella.. I do wonder if we will try to offload him, he is chewing up a first grade spot, and will cost us AlecTui probably.

SFainu far out he looks good for the tigers.. only 20.5 looks like hes been in 1st grade for years.. and is it his brother who is the standout? I am a bit sad we didnt get these brothers, the tigers lucked out on that one imo.

NSW Cup covered again on NSWRLTV this week btw V warriors.. starting to get annoyed with myself I didnt just get the season pass instead of monthly.. but tbf I had no idea how many games they would cover.. and still zero flegg games incoming.

 

[baggygreen man]

TPH into 6

Is Nick Quinn injured.

 

[baggygreen man]

and still zero flegg games incoming.

Main reason I dumped nswrltv

 

[TheRev]

Is Nick Quinn injured.

Its in Steves notes above, he copped a HIA last week, he was saying that TPH did 15mins at 5/8 last week and looked a lot more comfortable than hooker... so this week TPH is starting 5/8, will be very interesting.. very...