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It is interesting spot for Ciraldo cos I am sure he is very aware we have a big salary cap for 2024. A lot to play out over the next 12 months here. Club not willing to admit they have got it very wrong with O’Brien. Instead floating the expense as the reason to keep him on.
Key indicator is he & his wife have lived there before & love the area.
whats the point though, Cook is 30 and would want a long term deal like Gagai and the Gagai move has not really helped the side outside of 2 games. Cook would be good if we were a genuine contender but lets be real, we're a long way off and signing a 30 year old hooker who's arguably been on the decline and is reliant on speed makes little sense.
We really really really should be looking at a kid like Jayden Berrell
hes obviously an update on anyone we have but so was Gagai, the point is with players like Cook and Gagai is they're short sighted moves where you're hoping they're culture changers as much as on field difference makers, i mean Gagai was supposed to bring leadership, grit, experience, etc and whilst he's perhaps brought that it clearly has not rubbed off on the rest of the side. With Cook you're not talking about a guy in his prime who can improve, he's about to turn 31 and is on $700k a year, to get him you'd need to at least offer that much money but for probably 3 years and as i said at which time he'll be approaching a point where his best attributes will likely be in decline
the thing is Brailey is signed till 2025 and is probably on good money, to invest another $700k into a position where you've already invested quite abit of cap space into when you have so many holes in every single position is salary cap suicide. Realistically we need 2 halves, a winger, an edge, another decent middle as well as alot more depth to even be competitve again
It would also be cap suicide to go to market and buy good players in all those positions too, as we'd need to pay overs to attract them to the club
given what we know, it would be a very brave man to bet money on him staying fit. Certainly a professional club would want to have a very viable back -up plan.
Our team couldn't keep up with Cook's speed. Even if he declines in speed he'll still have no one who can keep up and support.
I gotta say, my gut feeling is this is what will happen. I'm not so sure I like it either. I like that he knows Newcastle and has been here before. But I feel we really need a hard nosed coach whereas Ciraldo seems very chill to me. It may work but I'm super skeptical.
Whether you find it appealing or not, you could count Milford and hopes of retaining Frizell to that list.
