The Farah move is an interesting one.
It could work into our favour having a hefty amount of his contract shaved off. Let's not forget this guy is a leader and is the NSW hooker. Sure, his form of late hasn't been crash hot but really we just need an experienced head to guide around the young/inexperienced hookers. A new environment could spur him to improve his game, plus with his brother by his side it could be a great thing for both himself and the club.
On the other hand, it could be Glenn Stewart 2.0. He can be quite selfish with the ball and as a 'Tiger for life' his heart might not be in it. Just like Stewart practically sabotaged our season last year, Farah could do the same and do what he has done with the Tigers.
While i'm not the biggest Farah fan, if we do sign him up i'd welcome him, just like I will with every player that puts on the red and green of our club. Hopefully for both parties things work out should the move eventuate.
Signing Robbie Farah will either work spectacularly well or condemn us to wooden spoon contention; there is no middle ground. In terms of the potential contribution that he could make, Farah's excellent ball handling skills could take a lot of pressure off Adam Reynolds and offer us another attacking dimension. In saying that, he will still need to do a lot of dummy half running in order for us to be an effective unit and to bring the Burgess brothers into play. Given that Farah is no spring chicken, I really doubt that he will be able to offer this sort of game for 80 minutes, meaning that we will need to play a hooker off the bench.
Signing Farah could also work to our detriment in that he is up to 3 coaches now who have had problems with him. Given that Madge is under extreme pressure to get results, having a player like Farah undermine him through acting like a loose cannon could completely destabilise the team and cost us in games. Moreover, I'd also have massive question marks over his passion and commitment levels for the club. How can he possibly feel any sentiment towards a team, when he has played over 250 games for a rival? We've seen what happened with Glenn Stewart and we can't afford to have that happen again!
My overall view on the situation, given what happened in the game against the Storm, is that we should wait at until the end of the season. Cook had a really good game and if he continues to show the same sort of form that he did last night then we should stick with him. However, if his form is patchy then we can look into signing him. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't advocate taking a risk on someone of Farah's nature but there aren't too many good hookers out there who are available so we need to be shrewd in the way we go about things. In any case, we are going to need Cook so any discussion about getting rid of him is moot.
