Snaring JT would add fire to Eels
* By Michael Hagan
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 EST 2009 Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 EST 2009
PARRAMATTA should have in their sights the world's greatest halfback, Johnathan Thurston, if they are to complete their transformation and become the NRL's dominant club.
Thurston will be on the market at the end of the 2010 season. If the Eels can sign the Cowboys, Queensland Origin and Kangaroos superstar they will have found the last piece in the puzzle on their way to being a premiership powerhouse.
They have the nucleus of a very good team, a Dally M winner in Jarryd Hayne, a tireless workhorse in Nathan Hindmarsh and a powerful front-rower in Fuifui Moimoi.
The emergence of Daniel Mortimer in the halves with Jeff Robson has been one of the talking points of the season. Robson, who has done a great job, may not be retained at the club because of salary cap pressure, which would place an expectation on Mortimer to play No. 7 at this famous club next season.
He has shown the necessary skills, toughness and temperament this year to suggest he could be the player the Eels can use to build their team around and is an Origin player of the future as they strive for a premiership.
But how long will it take for him to develop into a player capable of leading a team to victory on Grand Final day? The other problem: He may be best suited at No. 6.
Assuming he needs to play at least 100 games to learn his craft, do the Eels need to recruit a big-name player to ensure they have the quality in the key positions (like Melbourne) to win a title? They may have little room to move under the cap next year but if I were Daniel Anderson I'd go all-out to sign Thurston, who has expressed an interest in testing his value on the open market for 2011. I'm a big fan of Matt Keating and Kris Keating, who will both develop into long-time first- grade players at the Eels but the addition of a player like Thurston would give them the experience and direction to make it all count. You need a great halfback to win a title.
It can take a long time to recover from the pain of losing a Grand Final but the Storm have shown what can be achieved after one of the game's biggest defeats by Manly last season.
They have also given other teams a blueprint for success. In the era of salary-cap pressures, Melbourne invested in the key positions of fullback, halfback, hooker and five-eighth. Then there was the great mid-season recruitment of Brett Finch at bargain-basement level.
They have also invested heavily in coaching, performance and injury management - so their best players can cope better with the demands NRL and rep football place upon you.
The Eels appear to have recruited well with the arrival of former Eel and Wallaby Timana Tahu, Roosters back-rower Shane Shackleton and Dragons front-rower Justin Poore.
Their strength and conditioning program is second to none and their defensive capability improved dramatically in the last 10 weeks of the season. But the formula for winning a premiership says you must be in the top four. Starting slowly hurt them and they need to get out of the blocks more quickly to be a chance of getting there again next year.
the formula to winning the competition says you must be in the top four and the Eels have featured in the bottom half of the top eight in three of the last four seasons.
Their tradition of starting the year slowly has hurt them and they need to adopt a different strategy to get out of the blocks quickly to give themselves a genuine chance of being there again next season.
are no guarantees in this great game of ours and there will be 15 other teams, including Melbourne, who will be desperate to be there on Grand Final day next season.
