Rumours and Stuff

[Poupou Escobar]

Jake can kick the ball a lot further then I thought. Actualy the ball come off his boot much nicer this week then any other games I've seen. Prior his kicks looked wonky.

He’s no Mitch Moses but he definitely has an NRL standard kicking game. It’s just that with his age and lack of experience you can’t rely on him getting all the decisions around each kick right. But he was good against Manly. With every game he plays there will be better decision making. That’s why giving him limited minutes off the bench is a good idea. You don’t need four merkins on the bench to share the 80-90 spare minutes left when our middles go off. You could almost get away with two.

 

[Happy MEel]

what was the incident?

Salmon sent him some harshly worded textas

 

[TheRam]

Not twenty minutes without the f**ken ball ffs. It's a freak turn of events and if it happens again I expect any good side to blow the scoreboard out. Our defence just isn't good enough to cope with that much sustained pressure.

The problem with that theory is that if we or any team doesn't turns up with the right mongrel mindset, it is extremely and I mean extremely rare that an opposition would get 20 minutes shot at them.

When you play with the right attitude and bustle the opposition in defense with line speed and aggression no team gets that sort of time with the ball against you unless for some weird reason and a string of blue moons happens to go against you.

Possession is an outcome of good defense as much as it is from the oppositions mistakes or their own lack of aggression.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

No I’m not worried. That’s where the money should go to decent halves. Not to our over paid fullback. Gutho played his best game of the season against Manly but based on his overall season/s has not warranted that massive contract. Error by the club. He’s been overpaid by 300k

We don’t know how much he was paid merkin ffs

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Always said that if we had an injury that we put him in. We don’t have anyone else. And he set up two nice tries on Friday. First half was very average for him. I think what got most fans offside was earlier in the year BA chose to move Dylan brown out of position to accomodate Jake. Poor coaching move.

It wasn’t to accommodate anyone, it was to cover our injury crisis in the outside backs.

 

[King-Gutho94]

what was the incident?

Jaeman might have told Ricky's son he father can't coach for shit.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Well the Panthers would be outlaying close to 1.9 for their halves and they’re able to put a pretty good team around them. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to either.

Leaving aside the money Penrith are likely saving on their fullback compared to ours, there is plenty of evidence that the NRL isn’t a level playing field. What evidence do you have that we should be able to fit as much talent under the cap as the clubs that have proven their ability to do it?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

In comparison to paying Moses 1m+ When Moses may not be worth 1m+ to us.

Keeping Moses with how DB is progressing could be detrimental to our squad balance.

If Drown becomes the type of player who needs 50 touches per game we might not be able to get value out of another high paid halfback.

 

[IFR33K]

So which positions do you want to weaken by investing $2m in the 6 and 7?

They wouldn’t be far off that atm

 

[Poupou Escobar]

The article I quoted above suggests otherwise. If you can believe zerotackle, they have Luai on $700

I reckon Cleary’s on $1.1-1.2 and Luai’s on $650-700k.

Cleary might be on that much but I doubt it’s all under the cap.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Second rowers and fullbacks are a dime a dozen. There was never any reason to pay Guth $750k.

He provides plenty to our team, though I think $750k is the upper end of what he’s worth. I’m sure there are players just as good at bigger clubs that are only getting $600k on the cap. It’s not a level playing field which is why we are probably paying Gutherson market rate.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Look at Newcastle after letting Pearce go.

Or the Storm after letting Cronk go

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Salmon sent him some harshly worded textas

And he’s still hurtin’

 

[strider]

Ricky might have a perfectly legit gripe that Salmon behaved like a dick at some point in his life ..... but FMD, a 60ish year old professional sports coach has to be able to hold that shit back from a post game press conference .... absolutely nuts

 

[Poupou Escobar]

When you play with the right attitude and bustle the opposition in defense with line speed and aggression no team gets that sort of time with the ball against you unless for some weird reason and a string of blue moons happens to go against you.

Well this is what I’m saying happened.

 

[lucablight]

Or the Storm after letting Cronk go

They had some mug called Cameron Smith.

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Well that escalated quickly. So Now it’s 2 million for the 6 and 7? Weren’t we just talking about a million for Moses ?

Cloeel's post was about how much Moses was worth to is if D Brown continues to develop. How much do you think it's going to cost to keep him (Brown) beyond 2023? Then add that to $1m+ for Moses.

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

They wouldn’t be far off that atm

Well that's what I think they'll cost to renew. But D Brown won't be on anything near $1m at the moment (i.e. his 2022 salary).

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Second rowers and fullbacks are a dime a dozen. There was never any reason to pay Guth $750k.

Yeh, fullbacks get paid nothing

 

[Happy MEel]

Leaving aside the money Penrith are likely saving on their fullback compared to ours, there is plenty of evidence that the NRL isn’t a level playing field. What evidence do you have that we should be able to fit as much talent under the cap as the clubs that have proven their ability to do it?

Well what constitutes “talent” is subjective. I’d argue we have plenty of talent in our top 13. IMO, we have the best starting front row in the comp, we’re among the top clubs for our starting edge forwards, Matto is in the top 5 locks in the game and our halves combination is only behind the Panthers and Storm. Our centres and wingers are where we currently lack the most talent.

Like pretty much every other club, the drop in “talent” outside the top 13 merkins is quite significant.