Match Discussion: Round 23 vs Wests Tigers @ McDonald Jones Stadium, New Lambton / Awabakal

[Woody90]

Mullen looked so good early on until we ruined him. He needed Joey next to him for 2 or 3 more seasons for mentoring. After Joey retired we should have partnered him with an experienced half instead of all these young guns or firebrands.

NSW ruined Mullo more than we did. They picked him in an impossible position as a 20 year old and then it destroyed his confidence.

Obviously it wasn’t his fault as we saw after him that no NSW halves were going to beat that QLD team, but Mullo was the first one to be thrown to the wolves and cop the criticism. It was the NSW camp that falsely targeted him with the “next Johns” label, not the Knights.

 

[Old dog]

Still rank Mullo highly was one of my favourites

 

[Knight Tales]

Mullen looked so good early on until we ruined him. He needed Joey next to him for 2 or 3 more seasons for mentoring. After Joey retired we should have partnered him with an experienced half instead of all these young guns or firebrands.

Sharpe is a different breed. You can tell nothing fazes the kid. He is just a Maitland lad living the dream.

 

[perverse]

Yeah I dunno about the best since Joey but he seems to be a good'un. Has a long way to go in getting tested in the NRL, finding his position, etc... but there's a footy player in there.

 

[Yosh]

I hope we keep Sharpe on the wing and he can cover for Ponga during rep season and injuries for a couple of years then make the fullback position his own.

 

[perverse]

I hope we keep Sharpe on the wing and he can cover for Ponga during rep season and injuries for a couple of years then make the fullback position his own.

Pretty much the ideal for us, if we can make it pan out. There's a lot of water to pass under a lot of bridges before then, but ideally he hangs around and takes over from Ponga when he retires.

It's sad that we're already having these sorts of succession conversations about Kalyn. I think we're all feeling that he's now reached the mid-point of his career and we have nothing to show for it, or don't feel even any closer to having something to show for it than the day he arrived.

 

[Yosh]

Pretty much the ideal for us, if we can make it pan out. There's a lot of water to pass under a lot of bridges before then, but ideally he hangs around and takes over from Ponga when he retires.

It's sad that we're already having these sorts of succession conversations about Kalyn. I think we're all feeling that he's now reached the mid-point of his career and we have nothing to show for it, or don't feel even any closer to having something to show for it than the day he arrived.

I still get the feeling Ponga is going to end up at 6 maybe in 2 or 3 seasons under a new coach. Hopefully we have Ponga for another decade and win at least one Premiership with him as captain!

 

[ryan.a87]

I tend to agree

I see the reason the experiment kept failing was because the replacement fullbacks we had was Lachie Miller and Tex Hoy (I think? Could have been Watson)

now we have a very decent replacement in Sharpe, I could see it happening again

but we never will, AOB will get burnt by the media for trying it a third time

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

I still get the feeling Ponga is going to end up at 6 maybe in 2 or 3 seasons under a new coach. Hopefully we have Ponga for another decade and win at least one Premiership with him as captain!

I'm guessing he'll be gone come contract time. The club doesnt even seem close to a Premiership, and debatable if even headed in the right direction, and he's given most or at least half his career so far.

Ponga is a winner. Tedesco retiring soon, the Roosters will move heaven and earth

 

[perverse]

I'm guessing he'll be gone come contract time. The club doesnt even seem close to a Premiership, and debatable if even headed in the right direction, and he's given most or at least half his career so far.

Ponga is a winner. Tedesco retiring soon, the Roosters will move heaven and earth

Speaking as a fan of him as a player and person, I kinda hope he does. We're just f**king him around at this point.

 

[Knight Tales]

If he was to go anywhere I would hope it was back to the Cowboys. With Sharpe’s clear talent emerging is there a
Scenario where we consider using KP as a potential swap for an elite half at a top club?

 

[Woody90]

Speaking as a fan of him as a player and person, I kinda hope he does. We're just f**king him around at this point.

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but are we?

To me with KP it goes both ways. I definitely don’t feel that he’s overpaid in comparison to some of the blokes we have on our books, but he barely gets on the field and despite his experience now, and being on 1.4 mil, some weeks we’re still asking why he’s not getting involved.

To me he and his family have made no secret that their biggest priority is balance and life outside of football and setting KP and the family up outside of football.

He knowingly and happily came to a wooden spoon club who offered him the most money. In 2022, if he’d said that his main priority was to win a comp and was happy to take a substantial pay cut to do so, there would have been a tonne of interest outside of us and the Dolphins.

Serious question, does anyone actually think that a good team (I.e. a Panthers or Storm who are a consistent genuine premiership side) would pay Ponga even close to what we are for the amount of time he’s on the field and impact he’s had? Absolutely not. Not in a million years.

So I don’t really buy into this talk circulating that we’re holding him back. He and his Dad were happy to stay, despite the fact that they’re both acutely aware of the fact that Kalyn’s salary is going to impact on what we can put around him in other areas.

We get a lot wrong as a club but there’s no denying we’ve treated that family extremely well.

 

[Woody90]

Saying all this though, Sharpe is a 6 game rookie - he and KP shouldn’t be in the same sentence at this stage.

 

[Apey]

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but are we?

To me with KP it goes both ways. I definitely don’t feel that he’s overpaid in comparison to some of the blokes we have on our books, but he barely gets on the field and despite his experience now, and being on 1.4 mil, some weeks we’re still asking why he’s not getting involved.

To me he and his family have made no secret that their biggest priority is balance and life outside of football and setting KP and the family up outside of football.

He knowingly and happily came to a wooden spoon club who offered him the most money. In 2022, if he’d said that his main priority was to win a comp and was happy to take a substantial pay cut to do so, there would have been a tonne of interest outside of us and the Dolphins.

Serious question, does anyone actually think that a good team (I.e. a Panthers or Storm who are a consistent genuine premiership side) would pay Ponga even close to what we are for the amount of time he’s on the field and impact he’s had? Absolutely not. Not in a million years.

So I don’t really buy into this talk circulating that we’re holding him back. He and his Dad were happy to stay, despite the fact that they’re both acutely aware of the fact that Kalyn’s salary is going to impact on what we can put around him in other areas.

We get a lot wrong as a club but there’s no denying we’ve treated that family extremely well.

From 2018 - 2023 Cleary has played 118 games for Panthers and Ponga has played 108 for us. That's accounting for the fact they've made 4 straight grand finals and we've largely been a non-feature in the finals. If you include 2024, its 118 vs 110.

Cleary is supposedly on 1.1 - 1.2M, but if we're being serious, he's likely getting more than that when his Dad is the coach - a very nice workaround the Panthers have access to.

Now obviously Cleary has helped bring the Panthers more success than Ponga has. I would argue Ponga has won more games individually than Cleary has though, because he has to. Have you compared our two squads over the last few years? They're not even in the same stratosphere. Ponga being on 2 - 300k more than Cleary doesn't account for how embarrassing our squad is in comparison.

Storm, well, they're hard to compare. They have one of the GOAT coaches. Their 7 is a fullback converted into one of the best halfbacks in the game. They've loaded up their spine with plodders elsewhere. The sad thing is most of their plodders are still better than our plodders, because of the coach and club culture.

You left out the Roosters - who definitely would pay an obscene amount for Ponga because that's literally their trump card. It'd probably just show up as 1M on the cap, though.

Ponga has had a mixed year largely due to the foot injury, but the Panthers game is the only where I've felt he genuinely phoned it in. There's no doubt we needed better from him on that day.

You get Ponga a squad around him that is even remotely competent and earning their $$$, and unfortunately probably a different coach, then we'll have another look and see if his contract is an issue. He really is quite low on the list of our problems for me.

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

Storm and Panthers might not but a team on the fringe and missing a piece to the puzzle like Roosters or Cronulla would.

Put Ponga in the Roosters roster and they'd be talking about changing the rules to make him an immortal now.

 

[Woody90]

From 2018 - 2023 Cleary has played 118 games for Panthers and Ponga has played 108 for us. That's accounting for the fact they've made 4 straight grand finals and we've largely been a non-feature in the finals. If you include 2024, its 118 vs 110.

Cleary is supposedly on 1.1 - 1.2M, but if we're being serious, he's likely getting more than that when his Dad is the coach - a very nice workaround the Panthers have access to.

Now obviously Cleary has helped bring the Panthers more success than Ponga has. I would argue Ponga has won more games individually than Cleary has though, because he has to. Have you compared our two squads over the last few years? They're not even in the same stratosphere. Ponga being on 2 - 300k more than Cleary doesn't account for how embarrassing our squad is in comparison.

Storm, well, they're hard to compare. They have one of the GOAT coaches. Their 7 is a fullback converted into one of the best halfbacks in the game. They've loaded up their spine with plodders elsewhere. The sad thing is most of their plodders are still better than our plodders, because of the coach and club culture.

You left out the Roosters - who definitely would pay an obscene amount for Ponga because that's literally their trump card. It'd probably just show up as 1M on the cap, though.

Ponga has had a mixed year largely due to the foot injury, but the Panthers game is the only where I've felt he genuinely phoned it in. There's no doubt we needed better from him on that day.

You get Ponga a squad around him that is even remotely competent and earning their $$$, and unfortunately probably a different coach, then we'll have another look and see if his contract is an issue. He really is quite low on the list of our problems for

The blokes my favourite player in the squad and definitely not saying that I expect him to be winning us every game on his own, and definitely not comparing him to Cleary who has always been in privileged position. There’s no denying though that having 1.4 million on one player (all under the cap apparently) is going to have implications on other parts of the squad. No 300k doesn’t seem like a lot, but that could be enough to get another quality spine player over the line. Again, I don’t think that is a problem with Ponga, but he re-signed his last contract with the knowledge that his contract will have implications on the salary cap. If his primary motivation was premierships he would have his pick of clubs, but it would mean a pay cut as your Panthers and Melbourne aren’t going to pay that (I didn’t include the Roosters as they don’t really have a salary cap).

I will say though, although I don’t expect him to win us games on his own, for his salary I would want him consistently putting in at least the same effort as Gamble and Crossland do on 200k. He was better on the weekend though which is hopefully a step back in the right direction.

Getting a good coach in though that could generate a game plan that would support his strengths is a no brainer. We could debate whether Ponga’s contract is too much for squad balance all day, but poor coaching is just as much of the issue as the squad around him.

 

[Rod]

Before he got the foot injury he was looking like a shoe-in for back to back Dally M's. Then once he came back he was straight into Origin so quite a messy time.

Was definitely bad against the Panthers but has probably earned a bit of the benefit of the doubt based on what he did last year and before the injury.

The five-eighth thing is a funny one. I always thought it was inevitable he'd end up there but for whatever reason it didn't work whenever we tried it (and we did try it several different times).

 

[Knight Tales]

When Fletcher is up for renewal the club’s stance of KP and where he plays will be the deciding factor in whether we keep one or both. Cos I believe Sharpe is going to be an exceptional fullback. We have no right to block that.

 

[Zoidberg]

I think the concussion injuries would make moving KP to 6 more of an issue. Maybe train up Sharpe to be a 6?

 

[Knight Tales]

I think the concussion injuries would make moving KP to 6 more of an issue. Maybe train up Sharpe to be a 6?

I think we all have thought this could be the case. And it may still be where it goes in regards to Sharpe. I am not convinced our current coach can make it work like it should though. He will over structure Fletcher’s game removing a key point in attack for us. That being Fletcher’s instinctive ability to be on the ball at the correct moment.