Without wanting to start a sort of riot within the anti-Irish commentariat let's review our retention and recruitment achievements since we exorcised the last of the Arthurs:
Isaiah Iongi - Outstanding attack. Will be better for experience in defence
Ryley Smith - Young gun coming through from Panthers turned to ours supplemented with the best of the Tigers in
Tallyn Da Silva. Two of the best young gun 9s in the comp.
Lomax - Australian winger. Champion
Jack Williams - terrible hands yet selected for NSW under Ryles
We let go a whole bunch of stragglers and salary cap chokers:
The King
RCG
Matterson
Lane
Cartwright
On the whole I'd say Mark O'Neil has got the balance right.
I know it's a contentious point on this forum but there's a thousand news articles like those on on Bedji and the Tigers which clearly demosntreate the coach sets the tone for recruitment.