He was a big teddy bear. He come in same time as the Vicous fish. I said it then it be interesting who has the better career as both had similar talent imo. But Ram picked it immediately
I believe because he was so good in the lower grades and a big unit, we NRL'ed him way to soon and in a team that wasn't all that good and didn't help/protect him well enough. If people remember his first season or so, he was throwing himself into it like a mad merkin, but getting smashed all the time and even picked up shoulder injuries that threaten his immediate career and had to manage it ever since and then concussion issues too.
As time went on, I feel he lost a lot of confidence and was playing a game of just hit it up and take the collision without any footwork or finesse. So then the gang tackling of 3-4 players would just smash him and turtle him. He just didn't seem to know how to breakout of this type of negative playing cycle.
I believe two things ruined his career. One we blooded him and kept him there way to soon and hoped that he would slowly grow into the game and eventually come through well on the other side. And two, bad coaching that didn't know how to stop him from just taking on the gang tackling defenses with mindless hitup after hitup. He should have been used sparingly and the coaches should have drummed into him with hours of training, footwork drills so he could and would use his feet before the line to offset the defense instead of being such an easy target and get dominated almost all the time. Put doubt into the mind of the defense. Like Hindy said, in the lower grades he had footwork, so he was capable. The coaches should have seen and understood what was happening and adjusted his running style. Put him back into the lower grades if need be so as he could work on it, otherwise you risk him losing his game all together. Oh wait...
By using him the way we did we broke him and he never got over it. Typical young talent that was not handled well. Unfortunately he came through when BA was a relatively inexperienced NRL coach and was learning how brutal the NRL can be on young talent especially back then for forwards and the gang tackling and wrestle that was so predominate.
Dare I say it, if he had made his NRL debut in 2021, with all the new rules and us having the best pack in the NRL to guide, show and protect him while he is finding his feet, I feel he probably would have been a success and probably would have slowly developed into the player we all expected him to be. Alas we will never know.
