Give Wicks time, like Cross he's a large dude and needs several weeks of playing time to get the match fitness required. Keep in mind his horrendously interrupted pre-season and give it say 4 weeks before we crucify him. Having said that, I listed my top forward pack and explanations in the Hilder thread and couldn't find the desire or necessity to include him in it.
Cross was always going to be that player, I can't believe people who deny his assets. He had a sh*tty year with injury last year, and needs consistent game time to be effective. I'm not certain he's Origin level, but he's definitely an aggressive forward leader in the top 10 props running around, and exactly what we need.
Agree on Sau, I hope the bond he has with Smith and his recognition of how he has developed him keeps him as a Knight for life. I can't see how you can bag him, he will rep for NZ within the next few years, and if he learns to pass will be one of the best centres in the game.
Uate is exceeding my hopes for him, and I agree with what you've said about Smith biding his time well. I honestly thought Uate would be a lemon. He's the type of player that will draw crowds and make rep teams at the rate of his current improvement.
Ciraldo, agree with you, but didn't see the first two games this season, which coupled with his supposed excellent preseason, gave me hope that there was more to him than the useless plodder I saw last year. He threw a nice short ball in a game late last year, which led to a try, maybe there's more there. I wouldn't re-sign him, but Smith will.
Lulia can go away. He'll be handy marking Dell, but is a bit of a plodder, I'd rather Wes. Not fast or damaging enough with the ball to be useful to our team except as depth.
Faas has been our best prop consistently this year (Cross will take that away in the next few weeks). I hate his drops, and I never feel safe with him carrying it, but his yardage and speed is invaluable off the bench.
House, Hilder, Taia are all excellent, cheap signings who are now a big part of our team. House's developmental rate if maintained will see him play for Aus by the end of his career, and the same could be said for Taia and NZ if he elects to rep for them (don't think he'd rep in Aus).
I'm not crazy about Mark T, awesome intimidating defender, but that's it, 1 dimensional and never carries the ball. Good for depth, but that's it. Worth the minimum wage he'd be paid though and a typical prudent Smith signing.
As for what we lost,
Perry, pedestrian here, and not much better in Manly, rode the coat tails of the form pack of last year. The improvement that he did make there was never gonna be made here and his money is far better spent on Cross.
Carmont, pfft, solid by the end of his time here, but does he hold a candle to either of our centers currently? He's an older shorter version of Lulia.
Snowden is rubbish, looks like the prototypical man-child junior who can't excel in a competition where he isn't more developed than his competitors.
Newton had one good year, and was never worth what he was being paid. We have a young versatile and overflowing back row at the club at the moment, the majority of whom would be collectively on less than Newton's entire salary. House, Taia, Pato and Simmo are all much much better than he is. As tony said, he was also a petulant prick who left due to the shake up, why would we want that here even if he wasn't so hackish?
The Gidley family philosophy seems to be absed around never having to work after footy through prudent investment. Don't ask me where I read about it, but I did. Matt went for a huge pay day while he still could. He was very smart about it, retired from rep before he ahd the indignity of not beign accepted and went over to step into Jamie Lyon's massive financial windfall as a technical current rep. His departure had nothing to do with Smith.
Quinn was always a favourite of mine, but he's nothing special. He left because Bellamy dangled a 220k+ carrot at him. Do you think he's worth that? Mcmanus is better than him at most things, and is younger and cheaper. Wes and Vuna are the same, cheaper and in my eyes more useful additions to the team. Once again, nothing to do with Smith.
In summary, our net gains in the great player swap are enormous. Sure we picked up a couple less than brilliant players, but that's always bound to occur. Smith would have to have had a higher signing rate over the last couple years than any other club. I can accept a few duds out of 20 odd players, most of whom are more than adequate backup players who don't leave us in the lurch (As unremarkable as Lulia is he's never done anything wrong, saved a try that would have lost us the game last week with a take I don't think I'd back anyone else to have taken). We have fantastic depth and a very young, rapidly improving roster. All of which was acquired cheap by Smith and a lot of whom who will be blue chip superstars thanks to his identification and development. Smith kicked out a complacent mentality as well as a bunch of overpaid hacks, even if some of them were major losses (they weren't) I would still have backed him to do it, the attitude of the club needed shifting.
I don't understand how you, reginald can honestly say Newton was better than House or Taia, and even if he was that's just being wilfully manipulative by leaving out Simmo and Pato, both of whom destroy Newton as well.
Comparing Royal and White to Faas and Wicks is not right either. Royal wasn't an impact prop, and neither was White. I wanted to keep White, but you can't keep em all. Tolar is seen as the man to be our starting partner to Cross, and we have Simmo, House and Mark who can all adequately cover that role.
The only players that would have been worth re-signing in that they would contribute to this team and be worth the money would have been White, and Gidley. Gidley left of his own volition. And White was a dropped ball that is accounted for with excellent depth building that Smith has done.
EDIT - Sorry I bolded that bit because that was the essence of a post that started out replying to antonius with player assessments than realised the they were motivated by reginald p's comment. It was a little incoherent and rambling seeing as I changed tack in the middle.
(Christ when did they gay up that smiley?) It's been a concerted effort since the 'forum is dying(dead?)' post of a few weeks ago. Plus honestly, I'm just really excited about the game tomorrow, more excited than I can recall being. Truth be told I don't know why, we've been playing like sh*t in large patches, I just feel we can win this game and win it well, and theres a lot to like about our team, except the halves instability that is.
