Well if he can't make NRL anymore considering one of the Storms weaknesses is their backline, well something definitely is up. So unless we know exactly what it is and feel it wouldn't be a problem for us to rectify and considering his age now, I would be very hesitant to take him on.
We need a centre/wing that is in their prime or coming into it, not someone that maybe on the way down and out.
We need to cut as much deadwood as possible this off season and only recruit player that are better then what we currently have or are juniors that have a way higher potential ceiling, like the Roosters will be doing.
They already have got the jump on us for next season by the acquisition of Spencer Leniu and Dominic Young. Two players that would have transformed our roster for next year and who are exactly what we currently need. Spencer only cost $525K a season, which is a bargain for a player like him. Dominic will be on $500K, the same we paid for Fergo, so we do and should pay that sort of money for quality that we currently don't have and desperately need.
But we can only do that if we are ruthless and recognise just like the Roosters do that you can't win tittles by holding on to dead wood that will never flower or has dried up or is drying up and needs to be pruned.
How we can sign Offy and Davey for example which I'm sure if you combine both salaries would be around $500K if not more and not pursue Leniu who I'm sure would have looked at Parra quite favourably considering that we are basically next door to the Panthers compared to the Rooster and he would have mates here and the social dynamic and environment would be way more similar to the Panthers then the Roosters too. I reckon we would have had a great attraction for him as opposed to the Eastern Suburbs.
Anyway, what is done is done. We can't go back. We just need to hopefully wakeup and realise that buying a heap of average to plodders may give you depth, but in the long run will not win you a premiership. You need to have genuine NRL standard players.
We went into this years premiership with a sub par Hooker issue(gambling on a injury prone veteran). Also a winger and centre weakness that everyone could see that was just a ticking time bomb waiting to happen, much like our hooker situation really. And also we needed to sure up our frontrow with a quality third palooka.
We almost got lucky with Emu showing some signs of life and quality but then he went down, so who knows really how good he will be and will he kick on or not to be a genuine and reliable middle that can eventually take over the front row leadership group. That is a big ask, but that's what we need from him or otherwise he will be just another mediocre middle and we will eventually need to look elsewhere for someone to eventually take poll position over Junior, which by the looks of things maybe in a year or two at best.
Like many here have been saying, Potato Head will burn out our middles way sooner then they should be by the way he plays them with no real other support. Look at the Panthers, they developed outside backs that take that many hitups and relieve their palookas from that much grunt work that they should never experience burnout. We needed to be way smarter with our recruitment at least 2-3 years ago and sourced at least one other gorilla back, but we didn't.
Lets hop that someone at head office has an epiphany and realises all of the above and actually has the ruthless balls to do something about it. To sit there in the off season and say my hands are tied, we just don't have the cap space anymore is just not acceptable. At the very least we should somehow recruit a centre or winger that is a genuine metre eater or shit hot speedster that isn't a liability in defense.
Who, well there are players in every club that if your recruitment is up to it can persuade to break contracts just like happens all the time. Will you always be successful? Hell no, but give it a red hot crack ffs!!
Of course if our nursery was producing players the way it should have been doing(who's fault is that I wonder?), we probably wouldn't have these problems and we would now be sitting in the top 4 looking forward to blitzing every other team including the Panthers, who I think are very beatable if there was a genuine top quality roster out their with finals experience. Only the Broncos are a real quality roster besides the Panthers, but they may still be a little to green to beat such an experienced and high quality coached team like the Panthers. The Cowboys are almost there but they would need a lot of things go their way and maybe, but probably not.
Souths are busted and I can't see them really reversing all their issues. So that's it. There is no one else that could or will come close.
We on the other hand could have if we had addressed our issues properly before the season started. It is such a wasted season again too, considering how well Cartwright has flourished this season. He is an upgrade on Papalii in both offence and defense. He would have been a massive weapon for us had we got our weaknesses sorted like we should have. What a crying shame.
