I'll have a bit of a look later in the day at player movements but I find it hard to believe that Nicholls was the only option FMD keeping Drew was a better option IMO.
As I pointed out in my previous post we have for a long time had a propensity to sign senior journeymen rather than high quality external youth or properly develop our own.
In recent years we have seen the rise of Cottrick, Hass, Cleary, Mitchell, Ponga, Pangai Jnr, Crichton, Campbell Graham and so the list goes on please tell me where are our equivalents?
Other clubs either buy these guns or develop them internally get them to 1st grade and keep them there please tell me where are ours?
No doubt people will say Dufty & Aitken and whilst I acknowledge they are in the system they have great deficiencies and in fact those deficiencies do not seem to be improving any time soon which rings alarm bells to me re our system.
We purchased Hunt (good buy but is 28), Latimore, Graham, Nicholls all aged players and some consumate journeymen.
We did sign Periera who was a bit younger at 24 with no 1st grade experience and despite all our woes in the back line is still in reggies as was the 29 year old Nicholls until last week.
If people want to really believe there were no other options I think they have their heads stuck in the sands as other clubs seem to be able to get good quality mid season signings or young players who are keen to progress their careers at another venue and that does not seem to ring true at our club.
Teams have a history of purchasing older players to find that balance. For example, for the 2010 squad we bought Smith @ 29 (30 during the premiership year), Fein @ 29 (30 in the premiership year) and Priddis @ 32 (33 during the premiership year). There is value in doing that - especially when it is recognised that we have players coming through that are anticipated to fill those holes in the future. And before you say "..but Bennett", it's something that all clubs do for a variety of situations.
As I've said in previous posts, if you start filling all the spots with young players you end up with a Newcastle scenario where they languish at the bottom of the table and are constantly in a state of rebuild. Additionally, those players you mentioned - at least some of them have deficiencies as well - Mitchell's defense and ability to read plays is questionable, Hess also had defensive issues that he needs to improve. Yes our players have deficiencies but they are starring in a team that had been leading the comp since the beginning of the year. They are future stars that will improve with time - if you haven't seen the gradual improvement in Dufty's defense, you haven't been watching the games close enough.
The bringing through of players depends on a lot of factors - not just "getting them game time in first grade". For example, I have been lead to believe that Lomax has been struggling mentally with the pressure and they have been working with him to over come that. No point playing him in first grade if his mind isn't in the game. But we don't see that in the games or in the training. We see a young player with potential and then scream for him to be brought through immediately because we've seen a couple of games where he's played well. And then when he isn't we bag the f%%k out of the club and the coaching staff for not preparing them early enough. My point is, we don't have enough information to definitively say they have made the wrong decision.
Additionally different players develop better in different environments. Vaughn and Sims are great examples of players that have thrived in our culture and excelled on the field compared to their previous clubs. Kerr on the other hand may not have bought in to the club culture as well as had been expected and so is not developing as well as we would have liked - it may mean we cut him lose at the end of the contract and look elsewhere.
We may also have bought players to buy time knowing there are contracts expiring at certain times. As TRV has mentioned, you can't approach a player who is legally under contract. However if you know a players contract is due to end in a year or 2, you need to fill that gap with someone until you get a chance to officially approach them. I suspect that is what we have done in a number of roles. Nicholls may be one of those roles. we also don't know what their contract offers are and what sort of money they are being offered in comparison. Take LAM for example - everything points to him going to NZ next year. From what I understand the offers were similar but he wants to be closer to his family - so more than likely it would be difficult to sway his mind. Not something we would have been able to foresee but the club sounds as though they have done everything to keep him here.
There are so many factors to take into consideration that the statement "we buy old guys and aren't developing the young guys" is too simplistic to make a valid argument out of. It will be interesting to see what you find during your player movements research so we can see what other options there were as opposed to Nicholls.
PS - apologies for the wall of text - again.
