Rumoured Targets 3

[PhilGould]

From Toohey's News:

No interest in Pangai due to attitude and culture question marks. Dale Finucane has been discussed and AOB is a big fan, but concerns his best days as a player are behind him make it unlikely Knights will offer anything more than a 2-year deal.

 

[Jono078]

From Toohey's News:

No interest in Pangai due to attitude and culture question marks. Dale Finucane has been discussed and AOB is a big fan, but concerns his best days as a player are behind him make it unlikely Knights will offer anything more than a 2-year deal.

Fair on Pangai Jr.

Curious we will offer Finucane something though, just not sure he's a need. No doubt probably improves our training ethics and brings leadership but we have bigger concerns in the squad.

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

We have a stack of backs in the wings (pun intended).
Some are very promising and some won't make it. Some should be dropped.
I reckon we should give them a chance.
If we get another winger in it would have to be for experience and short to medium term.
Mann and Hunt add a little experience. They'll get better. .

 

[perverse]

I don't buy this 'leadership' thing, I mean firstly Klemmer was supposed to be our forward leader, then Frizzell, now Saifiti and Barnett is also in the leadership group. Look at our losses, it's not like we're getting killed up the middle, it's the fringes where we're getting absolutely destroyed as well as a lack of ability to score points, Finucane won't help in any of those areas.
Finucane is a very good player but has been very injury prone lately, is about to turn 30 and strengthens an area we're not really deficient in.
Maybe I'm seeing something different but in my opinion the reason we're going so bad is a distinct lack of depth and experience especially in the backs, some very questionable game plans and extremely poor structure in attack and defence.
Intangible stuff aside what exactly does Finucane offer that the rest of our middles don't?
Our priorities need to be the following:
1.winger who can stay fit and make metres early in the set.
2.centre who can defend
3.left edge forward who can do more than just run a crash line
4.forward that offer a point of difference whether it be offload, footwork or ball playing

I think yes... but also not really on this one. I actually think it's both. If you look at our past 3 or 4 weeks of football alone, I'd probably agree. I feel if you wind the clock back much further than that - then our effort areas and general direction were a lot worse. Our propensity to "drop our heads" has thankfully been more absent recently, but I'm not super confident that it's gone forever.

I expect these areas to go up another level again today with Pearce and others returning too. Reasons are twofold - I think Pearce is the closest thing to a real captain that we have, and I think belief will start returning as the top end players do (Ponga would have a similar effect in this regard). You can't manufacture or fake belief, you've either got it or you don't - and it's been very obvious at times this year that our team has none. Having said that, even with Pearce, Ponga and others back, we've always shown a propensity to drift out of games. I really don't think baking our problems down to just personnel skill and structures is 100% accurate, although all of the problems you mention definitely exist.

 

[Knight Tales]

O’Brien cannot afford to get his recruitment wrong. Finucane is far from what he needs. LOL the reason for not going after TPJ. That is laughable. We tired to sign Lodge but now want to
Moralise over Tevita.

 

[Yosh]

O’Brien cannot afford to get his recruitment wrong. Finucane is far from what he needs. LOL the reason for not going after TPJ. That is laughable. We tired to sign Lodge but now want to
Moralise over Tevita.

Really? Where is the evidence for such speculation?

We just resigned AOB to an extension last year and we have had terrible injuries all year. If anything, AOB will definitely have until next year to prove his worth at the least.

The last thing we need is a big management change and to rebuild from scratch again.

 

[ryana87]

O’Brien cannot afford to get his recruitment wrong. Finucane is far from what he needs. LOL the reason for not going after TPJ. That is laughable. We tired to sign Lodge but now want to
Moralise over Tevita.

From my understanding.... Lodge made mistakes in the past, but is doing everything he can to redeem himself........ Tpj is just a horrible human being in general

 

[aqua_duck]

I think yes... but also not really on this one. I actually think it's both. If you look at our past 3 or 4 weeks of football alone, I'd probably agree. I feel if you wind the clock back much further than that - then our effort areas and general direction were a lot worse. Our propensity to "drop our heads" has thankfully been more absent recently, but I'm not super confident that it's gone forever.

I expect these areas to go up another level again today with Pearce and others returning too. Reasons are twofold - I think Pearce is the closest thing to a real captain that we have, and I think belief will start returning as the top end players do (Ponga would have a similar effect in this regard). You can't manufacture or fake belief, you've either got it or you don't - and it's been very obvious at times this year that our team has none. Having said that, even with Pearce, Ponga and others back, we've always shown a propensity to drift out of games. I really don't think baking our problems down to just personnel skill and structures is 100% accurate, although all of the problems you mention definitely exist.

But do you not think it's unrealistic to expect one player in Finucane will magically make everyone else hold on to the ball? I think half the reason we do implode is because we make every hard for ourselves, we flat out refuse to spread the ball so metres are much harder to come by and alot of the time errors occur from trying to play the ball too quickly or a botched set move. When you watch the games where we've been smashed, we're getting killed on the edges because we almost expect opposition teams to play like us and just punch it up the middle and when they don't do that our edges get carved up

 

[perverse]

But do you not think it's unrealistic to expect one player in Finucane will magically make everyone else hold on to the ball? I think half the reason we do implode is because we make every hard for ourselves, we flat out refuse to spread the ball so metres are much harder to come by and alot of the time errors occur from trying to play the ball too quickly or a botched set move. When you watch the games where we've been smashed, we're getting killed on the edges because we almost expect opposition teams to play like us and just punch it up the middle and when they don't do that our edges get carved up

Oh 100%, completely unrealistic. I don't want us to get Finucane for all the reasons you've said.

 

[Yosh]

I think it was clear as day today that Finucane isn't the type of player we need. We dominated the middle. We had no game breakers.

Are their any gun centres we can target? Maybe Gagai is worth a look at? Him and left centre and give Best a run on the right?

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

Negotiations under way to retain Jones.

 

[perverse]

Are their any gun centres we can target? Maybe Gagai is worth a look at? Him and left centre and give Best a run on the right?

Only if the price is right. If you're looking to improve our attack, Gagai would help. He's not going to do anything for our defence out wide, though.

If you're paying Origin rep money for him, then I'd pass.

 

[Yosh]

To the English lad who follows our Hodgson!!!

Is Hodgson in the same ball park as Walsh in terms of talent? Not asking about his current ability but do you rate him a good a talent as Walsh?

 

[GidleyTwinz]

So what do people think about Lee?

There were rumours going around earlier in the year that the reason he wasn't playing was so we could use him as a mid-year player swap. Seems pretty evident in the last week that he's actually just re-broken his foot.

So he's clearly very injury prone. But when he's on the field he's a borderline origin player (emphasis on borderline). Seems to me like signing him offers a bit of optionality. Surely he wont be offered pay commensurate with his performance given the injury risk.

Who else will sign him? Should be given a very low dollar deal, and if he manages to stay healthy, it will be one of the deals of the year in 2022/23.

 

[aqua_duck]

So what do people think about Lee?

There were rumours going around earlier in the year that the reason he wasn't playing was so we could use him as a mid-year player swap. Seems pretty evident in the last week that he's actually just re-broken his foot.

So he's clearly very injury prone. But when he's on the field he's a borderline origin player (emphasis on borderline). Seems to me like signing him offers a bit of optionality. Surely he wont be offered pay commensurate with his performance given the injury risk.

Who else will sign him? Should be given a very low dollar deal, and if he manages to stay healthy, it will be one of the deals of the year in 2022/23.

Just way too injury prone unfortunately and seems to really struggle with rehab, was same story in 2019.
As far as cheapish wingers go my preferences would be
1.Murray Taulagi
2.Nene MacDonald
3.Jorge Taufua

 

[Jono078]

What happened to Nene? Haven’t seen him in a while? Thought he had a great season maybe 2 or 3 years ago.

 

[aqua_duck]

What happened to Nene? Haven’t seen him in a while? Thought he had a great season maybe 2 or 3 years ago.

Had pretty bad injury in 2019 at the cowboys, had a few off field issues and decided to take some time away from the game, signed with Cronulla midway through last year, played 2 games in 1st grade and has been in NSW cup this year. I think we could probably get him for not much more than minimum wage, he's got the ideal build for a modern winger and at 27 should really be hitting his physical prime

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

Should be given a very low dollar deal,

I've been debating this. His value on the market would be very low now.
The Club is one that looks after its players regardless of their position in the club. That's part of our core and something I wouldn't want to see changed.
Issues with Lee were how injury prone he is and the money he asks as a Qld rep player.
I'd sign him again on low money for a year and get him recovered and take it from there.

 

[Old dog]

The problem with that is if he remains injured we have used up a top 30 spot and got nothing for it, no matter how cheap.

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

The problem with that is if he remains injured we have used up a top 30 spot and got nothing for it, no matter how cheap.

Rest of the year in rehab I reckon then see if he recovers.