Rumours and Stuff

[JokerEel]

unfortunately, we'll have to play him before any of those chaps outside the top 30.....at least til mid-season.

Development players can play from round 1 now.

At the moment with a full strength side our backup forwards are:

Grieg
Makatoa
Moretti
Rodwell
Ogden
Doorey
Toni
Guymer
Brazil
Tuivaiti

 

[JokerEel]

Without Matto our bench could be:

Hands
Kelma
Offa
Greig

 

[TheRam]

Swap him for Matterson, we are a better team straight away. Convince me I’m wrong.

No convince me you're right.

 

[pazzaeel]

I get your point mate and it’s a good one. However in one season Hopgood has passed him, taken his starting position is a future Captain and is being paid less than Matterson who is in his prime.

i agree. Matto has little to no "impact". i feel like we have enough of those players. he is a princess too. i feel like he would be an easy player to move on and we wouldnt notice much difference. I'd love for us to have a player who is a real impact player off the bench. a couple of short stints to get some momentum rolling or maybe a centre who has some attacking flare but may have a defensive weakness or two. we have a team full of "reliable" players and it makes us to predictable.

 

[Obscene Assassin]

unfortunately, we'll have to play him before any of those chaps outside the top 30.....at least til mid-season.

Development players can play from round 1. It's 2nd tier guys I.e Lumelume and Martin that have to wait until round 11 before being selected.

 

[yy_cheng]

Without Matto our bench could be:

Hands
Kelma
Offa
Greig

and we have 2 injuries and suspension?

Greig in starting with Offa

Hands
Makatoa
Moretti/Ogden
Kelma

 

[yy_cheng]

Why are Superman Harper or Lomax fixing the forwards?

if we lose 2 forwards during the year. We lose Matterson, we would need the outside backs to perform like panfers outside backs.

So can these guys do that?

 

[pazzaeel]

Our game relies on power play, if we reduce the strength of the pack, an injury/suspension or 2 will impact our game too much that i doubt a lomax, a superman or a harper could fix

Ba will then burn out our forwards and we end up out of puff come finals time.

Its a no from me.

We stuffed up our recruitment and this would be a weaken one area to strengthen another

we dont have a power game. we need to face facts the Paulo and RCG are declining. they rarely bend the line and get quick play the balls. we dont make the good teams works hard enough in defense which in turn enables them to attack a lot harder.

if this is our game plan (again) this year, we will struggle. we dont have hard enough running forwards for a "power game"

 

[yy_cheng]

i agree. Matto has little to no "impact". i feel like we have enough of those players. he is a princess too. i feel like he would be an easy player to move on and we wouldnt notice much difference. I'd love for us to have a player who is a real impact player off the bench. a couple of short stints to get some momentum rolling or maybe a centre who has some attacking flare but may have a defensive weakness or two. we have a team full of "reliable" players and it makes us to predictable.

I think Kelma is that person along with Greig

Matto offloading and playing ball is an impact. But for some reason, he reined it in last year, maybe coz Paulo was trying to ball play too much. He only ball played when we fell behind

 

[yy_cheng]

we dont have a power game. we need to face facts the Paulo and RCG are declining. they rarely bend the line and get quick play the balls. we dont make the good teams works hard enough in defense which in turn enables them to attack a lot harder.

if this is our game plan (again) this year, we will struggle. we dont have hard enough running forwards for a "power game"

If we dont have a power game, we are gonna rely on our outside backs?

Even with Lomax, that wont do much if we cant lay a platform

 

[Glenneel]

we dont have a power game. we need to face facts the Paulo and RCG are declining. they rarely bend the line and get quick play the balls. we dont make the good teams works hard enough in defense which in turn enables them to attack a lot harder.

if this is our game plan (again) this year, we will struggle. we dont have hard enough running forwards for a "power game"

What we have is the slowest ptb's in the league, fix that and our attack would improve. Look at Panthers and Broncos, quick ptb's and with the speed of their teams they blow opposition off the park.

 

[eel01s]

Look I think Lomax is ok but is he really what we need? Especially at his current price.

 

[yy_cheng]

What we have is the slowest ptb's in the league, fix that and our attack would improve. Look at Panthers and Broncos, quick ptb's and with the speed of their teams they blow opposition off the park.

not only that, coz we want to be nice guys, we try to get off the players as quick as possible, which then means we have slow ptb relative to the opposition.

I still think we just need to fix our defense.

 

[yy_cheng]

Look I think Lomax is ok but is he really what we need? Especially at his current price.

Maybe more expensive, rather have the HAMMA.

Closest person I have seen to be like SEMI

 

[TheRam]

I agree, that’s why he’s our best bargaining chip. We can also cover for him with what we have already in the books and coming through. In my opinion.

No we can't. That is just speculation and a lot of wishful thinking. Our junior development has definitely disappointed and let us down way more than not over many years and until we start to actually churn out regular NRL standard and the occasional rep quality players, nothing has changed for me.

So again convince me and everyone else here that has massive doubts about trading a proven quality player for a hot and cold self serving ego driven, entitled and disruptive spoilt brat. Especially if I were to go down this path I would be looking at trading say Offa who is still quality enough and a good experienced role model leader type that clubs like the Dragons would benefit from, but would not really weaken our forward power at all.

That is how you get value for your club. Not by weakening one area to strengthen another. Our team is based on and almost totally relies on the power game and removing one of our main arsenals in that area will not do us any favours especially over a long season and the way Potato Head doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes and burns them out the way he does.

Offa would be less of a loss and we probably would be able to cover his loss with what we have coming through way more easily than our very own special Princess.

Just my to bobs worth.

 

[yy_cheng]

No we can't. That is just speculation and a lot of wishful thinking. Our junior development has definitely disappointed and let us down way more than not over many years and until we start to actually churn out regular NRL standard and the occasional rep quality players, nothing has changed for me.

So again convince me and everyone else here that has massive doubts about trading a proven quality player for a hot and cold self serving ego driven, entitled and disruptive spoilt brat. Especially if I were to go down this path I would be looking at trading say Offa who is still quality enough and a good experienced role model leader type that clubs like the Dragons would benefit from, but would not really weaken our forward power at all.

That is how you get value for your club. Not by weakening one area to strengthen another. Our team is based on and almost totally relies on the power game and removing one of our main arsenals in that area will not do us any favours especially over a long season and the way Potato Head doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes and burns them out the way he does.

Offa would be less of a loss and we probably would be able to cover his loss with what we have coming through way more easily than our very own special Princess.

Just my to bobs worth.

Yup. The ceiling for Matto is higher than for Offa. From another team's perspective, a bit suss that we get him and then get rid of him so quick.

Maybe Sivo is another one we can trade off. He has a good reputation I gather, bit like Olam.

 

[TheRam]

Our game relies on power play, if we reduce the strength of the pack, an injury/suspension or 2 will impact our game too much that i doubt a lomax, a superman or a harper could fix

Ba will then burn out our forwards and we end up out of puff come finals time.

Its a no from me.

We stuffed up our recruitment and this would be a weaken one area to strengthen another

I couldn't have said it better myself yy_cheng.

 

[yy_cheng]

I couldn't have said it better myself yy_cheng.

I did it in less than 10 paragraphs too !!!

 

[TheCrowe]

Look I think Lomax is ok but is he really what we need? Especially at his current price.

People are remembering 2020 Lomax, not 2023 Lomax where forwards were running him down.

 

[yy_cheng]

i agree. Matto has little to no "impact". i feel like we have enough of those players. he is a princess too. i feel like he would be an easy player to move on and we wouldnt notice much difference. I'd love for us to have a player who is a real impact player off the bench. a couple of short stints to get some momentum rolling or maybe a centre who has some attacking flare but may have a defensive weakness or two. we have a team full of "reliable" players and it makes us to predictable.

We dont have a team full of reliable players. We have a team full of flair.

We are coached to play percentages.

Gutho and Will probably plays the truest to their nature.
Dyl and Moses have alot of flair but are coached to play percentages
Carty, Lane, Matto, Paulo all have flair but again probably coached to play percentages

Sivo, Superman hardly reliable.

We are predictable we are coached to play that way. Effort, chase the collission, kick to corner, defend.

I really don't think our players are naturally like that. They are more like the 2009 side.